Baking is alive and well at the Inter-State Fair in Coffeyville, Kansas.
The annual bake sale took place on Monday, August 14, with 118 exhibits on the auction block and 4-H youth and open class both up for bids.
Among the sellers were three young people, two of them just getting started in the kitchen and one an accomplished baker.
Olivia Saucedo, of Cherryvale, Kan., made a pink decorated pig cake that sold for $110. The cake required two cake pans, one big, and one tiny, said the eleven-year-old, who piped the pink frosting on the cake herself. Olivia, who will be a sixth grade student this fall, also made a coffee cake and a devil’s food cake for the fair. When she grows up, she’d like to be a veterinarian. She plays soccer and softball and is a member of the Happy Hustlers 4-H Club. She is the daughter of Carrie Cascarano and Howard House.
Levi Good’s snickerdoodle cookies sold for $125, and the seven-year-old, who will be a second grade student at Caney Valley School this fall, bakes with the help of his mom. In school, he enjoys math and recess time and also made pumpkin muffins for the fair. In the next few days, he’ll show his bucket calf Ferdinand (named after the book Ferdinand the Red Bull), and will do something he’s been looking forward to all summer: ride the mechanical bull. Levi likes to fish with his brothers, Silas, who is nine, and Josiah, who is four, and his dad. He is the son of Dottie and Zach Good.
One of the veteran bakers at the fair was Josie Reilly of Cherryvale. The twenty-one year old has been baking since she was seven years old, following the example of her older sisters, Mary Reilly and Torie Shrick. “I always looked up to them, and I got to see what they did, and move on as they did they did.” Josie’s lemon bars with zest brought $105, and part of the secret is in the complexity of the baked good. “When you bake the fancier things, it’s about judge appeal,” she said. “A lot of it is the time and effort you put into it. Making something that takes four hours, rather than two hours, and putting all the little touches on it. The lemon zest: it’s all about the zest.”
Reilly has put time and dedication into her baking projects. “Sometimes you don’t get to go to the rodeo the night before and hang out with your friends. You have to get up at six am and finish icing your cake before you can go and play.”
She also credits her mom, Debbie Reilly, and her grandparents, Louie and Helen Lattin, for her baking finesse. In addition to lemon bars, she entered a butter brickle cake in the fair this year.
Reilly will be a senior at Kansas State University this fall and will graduate next May with a degree in agriculture education. She hopes to teach school in rural Kansas, and next August, she’ll be back with her open class items again. She is the daughter of Phil and Debbie Reilly.
The auctioneers for this year’s bake sale were Marty Hill and Dale Baker. Superintendent was Janet Sandusky. Last year’s bake sale proceeds were $8,700.
The week’s activities at the Inter-State Fair and Rodeo continue August 15-19. For more information on the schedule, visit www.FairandRodeo.com.
### –
Cutline: Olivia Saucedo displays her pink pig cake, which sold at the bake sale at the Inter-State Fair in Coffeyville on Monday night. Photo by Ruth Nicolaus.
Cutline: Levi Good holds his snickerdoodle cookies at the Inter-State Fair’s bake sale as Marty Hill serves as auctioneer. Photo by Ruth Nicolaus.
Cutline: Auctioneer Marty Hill and Josie Reilly share a light-hearted moment as Josie’s lemon bars are auctioned off during the 2017 Inter-State Fair’s bake sale. Photo by Ruth Nicolaus.
