Conducting Down-Home Fun Valleyfest Comes Alive With Classical Music, Dogs, Brats And Good Kids, Too

Sun., Sept. 21, 1997

By Ward Sanderson wards@spokesman.com

It was a great early number: John Williams’ “Cowboy Overture.”

That’s because it was a little bit city, a little bit country. Both uptown and down home. A lot like the Valley, come to think of it.

The Spokane Symphony Orchestra shared the Valleyfest spotlight on Saturday with homemade ice cream, bratwurst and kids’ crafts. And lots and lots of dogs.

Terrace View Park was packed to the tune of about 20,000 people, plus those pets. Not bad for a festival that weighed in as a mere picnic of 5,000 back in 1990.

Conductor Fabio Mechetti, facing the masses huddled around his clamshell of an amphitheater, introduced the overture.

It was by the same guy who wrote the theme to “Star Trek,” Mechetti said.

“Excuse me - ” he corrected. “‘Star Wars.’ Same galaxy, different composer.”

While there was no Chewbacca, there were German shepherds and yipping Yorkies and even a slinking ferret. It drove Susie - a small, gray, bearded girl - bananas.

Susie is part pug, part schnauzer. And this was usually her park to walk in, alone.

“As long as she’s close to Mommy, she’s OK,” cooed the dog’s white-haired owner, Jeanne Koegen.

She squeezed Susie, who stared at the thousands of dogs and folks nestled in lawn chairs and blankets. “Yay-us, we think you’re special.”

The smell must have been killing her. There was plenty of chow. Ken Beatty’s German sausage and sauerkraut stand moved 26-dozen dogs.

“I feel like I made them all myself,” he sighed.

Some chose to eat their labors. At the ‘Art Fun’ area, kids could make their own Froot Loops necklaces. “They were definitely eating as much as they were making,” volunteer Dana Moosman said, laughing.

Others kids tried stepping up to the painting easel. All over the grass, shiny-wet pictures of pumas and rainbows and olive-green blobs dried in the sun.

Kids slathered the stuff everywhere.

“It’s washable paint,” Moosman said.

Good thing for William. The red-haired kid with the paper crown about walked on top of the whole grassy gallery of drying works.

“Don’t walk on everybody’s pictures!” hollered a woman who hooked him under each arm and hauled him away. He didn’t let out a peep.

A cowboy wouldn’t have stood for that.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

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