~ Janet Bailey Shieldes 1965 Dairy Festival Queen ~
~ Janet Bailey Shieldes 1965 Dairy Festival Queen ~
Storyland Characters
Were the Feature of the
1965 Dairy Festival
It was this Junior Waverly Club entry, depicting "Hansel & Gretel in Dairyland," that won the 1965 Dairy
Festival float competition. The float was ridden by Dairy Festival Queen Candidate, Janet Bailey, who won
the crown in 1965.
The 1965 Hopkins County Dairy Festival marked the 7th pageant and contest, and coincided with the 29th Annual Northeast Texas Dairy Show, as the events unfolded on May 4th-8th, in Sulphur Springs. Lyndon Johnson was in the White House and the Vietnam War was escalating, as Hopkins County, 18 year old, young men were being required to "register for the draft," within 5 days of their birthday. The week of the Dairy Festival, Johnson signed a $700 million War Finance Package and places unheard of before, were being brought into homes on the nightly news, as footage of the jungles of Vietnam were signaled "back home."
Morris Supermarket was advertising their specials of the week as a 6-pk of small cokes, for only 19 cents, when you had your returnable bottles. Lemons were 10 cents a pound and Texas Gold Ice Cream, in all flavors, was 59 cents for a half-gallon. Melorine (heaven forbid you bought it in dairy country) was only 19 cents for a half-gallon.
We found 1965 Dairy Festival Queen, Janet Bailey, now living in McKinney, Texas, where she has been married to her high school and college sweetheart, Bill Shieldes, for forty years in January. "We have two sons, R. Scott Shieldes, a Special Litigating Attorney for IRS and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney, who is a graduate of the University of Texas and the Houston School of Law, and Lee Bailey Shieldes, an IT Specialist for McGriff Insurance and a graduate of Texas A&M University," declared Janet, as she described her family. "Both sons live in Houston."
Janet and Bill Shieldes have lived in Minot, North Dakota, College Station, Texas, and Plano, Texas, before moving to McKinney. Bill, a Hopkins County native and a graduate of Texas A&M, was commissioned and served in the U.S. Air Force as a Ground Safety Officer, before joining TI/Raytheon for a 35 year career. He retired in 2008. And, Janet earned her BS in Education from the University of Texas, and later earned a Masters of Liberal Arts from SMU. She has been a teacher, a travel consultant, a zoning officer, and a contract administrator, throughout her business career, before retiring 8 years ago. She advises that she spends most of her time doing volunteer work in McKinney for the Heard Museum and Wildlife Sanctuary, Beta Sigma Phi Sorority, and is heavily involved in Stonebridge United Methodist Church, in McKinney, where she serves as a Stephen Minister and a Stephen Leader.
"According to my sorority ritual (Beta Sigma Phi), 'the only right we have to make a queenly quest, is to be useful!" expresses Janet Bailey Shields. "I think I began learning that lesson long ago, in the Hopkins County Dairy Festival!"
Janet, the daughter of Malcolm Z. and Rosemary Bailey, was a senior at Sulphur Springs High School when she won the crown in 1965. "I think I was entranced by the Dairy Festival, from the very first," allowed Shieldes. "When Sunell was crowned as the first queen, I thought our own pageant, in Sulphur Springs, was even better than Miss America!"
"My mother's club, the Junior Waverly Club, had three girls eligible in 1963, when we all were in the 10th grade," continued Shieldes. "We drew lots and my friend, Linda Moore, and I were at a slumber party, when we learned that she would compete in 1963. Judy Gray competed the next year, and 1965 was my year!"
"I hope other little girls are dreaming that someday they can also be in the
Dairy Festival Pageant and win the crown!"
~ Janet Bailey Shieldes, 1965 Dairy Festival Queen ~
Dairy Festival Candidate, Jan Craver, aboard her float depicting "Cinderella in Dairyland!"
As preparations began for the 1965 Dairy Festival, Craver's Hardware Store was encouraging local dairy farmers to enter their business to discuss the new milking equipment that they were featuring. And, across Jefferson Street, the New Peoples National Bank was opening its doors in the new "state of the art" building, that featured multi-car drive-in banking. Tellers at Peoples National Bank were: Kyle Wright, Janet Wheeler, Mary Brice, Wilma Ballard, and Jane Beville. Directors of Peoples National Bank included: William Taylor, Jr., Dr. Sam Swindell, Emory Wright, John J. Morris, Phil A Sartin, Sam Bonham, C. Harlan Craig, Walter Helm, J.D. Beaty, S.T. Garrison, and Joe N. Chapman. Bank President, S. T. Garrison had announced the grand opening for May 1, 1965. As a part of their celebration, they were offering children under 14 years of age the opportunity to win "Tony," a black and white pinto, Shetland pony, who would be given away, complete with a bridle, saddle, and blanket. Does anyone remember who won "Tony?"
The Mission Theater was showing "The Bear Heart" with Geraldine Page and Glenn Ford, and "Cleopatra," featuring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton; admission was only $1.00, for adults, and children were admitted for 50 cents. At the Hi-Vue Drive-Inn, it was John Wayne in "North To Alaska," and "Spencer's Mountain," in a double-feature!
Dairy Festival Candidate, Carla Brice, as "Rapunsel in Dairyland" in the 1965 Parade.
The float won third prize and featured the giant "three-dip" ice cream cone.
Sulphur Springs and the surrounding dairy farms had just received some much needed moisture for the pastures and hay meadows, the last week in April of '65. However, with a late Easter, the temperatures had plummeted and a "light frost" was experience on April 29th. Weather observers were stating that they didn't think that it had affected any of the grass or garden plants.
Moore's Discount Center was featuring several items for those young ladies who were entering the Dairy Festival Contest. They had "Lilt" permanents for only 47 cents; Aqua-Net hair spray for only 57 cents a can, and a package of 12 large, hair rollers could be purchased for 47 cents. Jergen's Beauty Lotion was 63 cents a bottle and a 20" "Eskimo" fan was only $14.97. Head and Shoulders Shampoo was 59 cents a bottle and Tide washing detergent was 59 cents for a large box.
Valinda Hathcox, Dairy Festival Candidate, aboard her 1965 "Pinocchio" float, getting ready to
enter the parade. Note the classic cars.
At Quicky Foods, whole fryers were 25 cents per pound; boneless top sirloin steak was 89 cents a pound; fruit cocktail was 19 cents a can and Vienna sausages were five cans for $1.00. "New Crop" strawberries were 29 cents a pint and wieners were only 39 cents a package. Five pounds of flour was 39 cents and and if you didn't want to make those biscuits, canned biscuits were a nickel a can.
The Sulphur Springs FFA Milk Products Team was headed to State Competition at Texas A&M University. Team members were Marvin Wayne Jones, Eddie Flora, and Tony Highfield. They were to be accompanied by high school vocational agriculture teachers, Sterling Beckham and Billy Conner. Meanwhile, the Sulphur Springs High School Golf Team was headed to state competition, also. Team members winning the Regional competition by one-stroke and a combined score of 654, were Bob Brittain, Ike Harper, Eddie Moore, and Andy Flowers. Runner-up at Regional was Athens.
On the national sports "picture" one of the favorites for the upcoming Kentucky Derby was "Jerry's Jacinto," a promising 3 year-old, with heavy odds to win. Does anyone know who won?
Margaret Coffee represented the BP&W Club as their Dairy Festival Candidate, as she depicted
"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" on this 1965 parade entry.
Local dairyman, C.F. Tucker had been notified that his nine year-old Holstein Cow, Dalcrest Rosetta, had completed a record of 15,080 pounds of milk and 566 pounds of fat, in 299 days, to be one of the top cows in the nation, for her age group. The monthly Hopkins County DHIA Report revealed that the top dairy herds in the county were as follows: Billy Jack Allen, Charles Hickman, Aud Brown, T.O. Kight, C.F. Tucker, T.D. Harness, J.P. Ledbetter, Newman Bradford, Louis Woodall, and East Texas State University. Tucker, Hickman, Harness, Brown, and Ledbetter had the top individual cows for the month.
The Queen Beauty and Talent portion of the Dairy Festival was featured on Tuesday, May 4, 1965, featuring Janet Bailey sponsored by Junior Waverly Club, Margaret Coffee, Gilda Gideon, Linda Grayson, Kathy McKay, Carla Brice, Jeannine Ramey, Valinda Hathcox, Sandra Cates, and Jan Craver. An appearance by reigning Dairy Festival Queen, Judy Jackson, was featured, as well as former queens Mrs. Betty Brice Moon (1961) and Miss Mary Ann Prim (1963).
This Rotary Club entry in the 1965 parade featured Dairy Festival Candidate Jeannine Ramey, as
"Goldilocks & the 3 Bears," as she stole the Baby Bear's milk. It won 2nd place in the contest.
The Dairy Festival Parade, featured on Thursday, May 6th, at 2:30 p.m., featured the 10 contestants, the queen's float, and a float entered by the Sulphur Springs FFA, along with commercial entries, in what was described as "the most colorful procession in the history of the 7 year organization," and floats were praised for their workmanship, color, and originality. The theme for the 1965 Parade and Festival was "Storyland in Dairyland" and featured children's fairy tales depicted on the candidates floats. Margaret Coffee rode a float representative of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," Gilda Gideon rode a float depicting "King Midas' Touch," and Linda Grayson rode the float that represented "Jack and the Beanstalk." Kathy McKay was "Little Red Riding Hood," and Carla Brice was "Rapunzel" who's long, long hair cascaded from a three-tier ice cream cone. Jeannine Ramey, rode the float that was a crowd favorite and constructed by the Rotary Club, that depicted "Golilocks and the Three Bears," where she was "being charged with drinking all the baby bear's milk," on the humorous float. Valinda Hathcox rode the "Pinocchio" float and Sandra Cates depicted "Black Beauty." Jan Craver was "Cinderella." The first prize float was the Junior Waverly Club float, rode by Janet Bailey, as it depicted "Hansel and Gretel," who were featured with Miss Bailey before a house made of ice cream, candy, other goodies!"
The judging criteria was listed in three categories for the 1965 Dairy Festival Queen, including talent, beauty, and ticket sales. Janet Bailey was awarded the talent segment of the contest. Kathy McKay won the "beauty" segment of the contest and Miss Carla Brice was awarded the ticket sales segment, with all receiving trophies. Then, as a "hush" came over the crowd, it was Miss Janet Bailey, daughter of Mr. & Mrs. M.Z. Bailey, who was named the 1965 Dairy Festival Queen, and crowned by Judy Jackson.
"When my name was called as winner of the Dairy Festival Queen, and Judy Jackson placed the crown on my head, my heart was full!" exclaimed Janet. "All I saw was a blur of silvery, shiny lights, all around. The world almost seemed to stop, as I sat on the throne, not believing that I had actually won!"
"Being among the first members of the Blue Blazes Drill Team at Sulphur Springs, our director, Lesby Rhodes, had taught us to perform and dance with confidence," remembers Janet Bailey Shieldes. "I solicited the help of my friend, Ann Kindel, for the talent portion of the Dairy Festival, and she helped me prepare a dance routine to 'Belly Up to the Bar Boys,' from the movie and musical 'The Unsinkable Molly Brown.' I can remember wearing red long johns and big shoes for the number. I was thrilled to win the talent portion of the contest, also!"
The 1965 Festival featured a 6:30 p.m., buffet dinner for the Queen Contestants, escorts, and visiting royalty, a 7:30 p.m. Coronation in the Rodeo Arena, in City Park, and a 9:30 p.m. Queen's Ball in the Armory Building in City Park. The ball was attended by an estimated 200 people.
Dairy Festival Queen Candidate, Kathy McKay, rode this Lion's Club entry in the '65 parade and
was featured at "Little Red Riding Hood."
The Northeast Texas Dairy Show opened in the Show Barn, in City Park, at 8:30 a.m., on Friday, May 7th, with the Junior Dairy Show. Delores Kay Flora, of Como FFA, won Grand Champion Guernsey Bull honors, and Jerry Rhodes, Sulphur Springs FFA, won Reserve Champion Holstein Bull honors. David Arnold, of the Kilgore FFA, but with family in Hopkins County, won the Reserve Champion Jersey Bull honors, and Sherman Crawford of the North Hopkins FFA won Grand Champion with his Other Breeds Ayrshire Bull.
Richard Watson, Marvin Wayne Jones, Freddy Ledbetter, Mike Glenn, Ronny Stewart, Terry Tate, Troy Ledbetter, Glenna Watson, Tommy Rawson, Tommy Dicken, Jerry Wilhite, and Wayne Hinton were all listed as local exhibitors in the Holstein Show. Gary Odom won the Grand Champion Ayrshire Cow Award and local Jersey female exhibitors included: Randy Koon, Jana Koon, Bryant Fisher, Eddie Flora, Curtis and Rickey Vorheese, Thomas Houston, Marynell, Rachel, and Neal Anderson, and Mary Ann Highfield. Guernsey and Ayrshire exhibitors included: Dwight and Rodney Alexander, Roy Milton Johnson, Patricia and Sheila Bearden, Norma Houston, and Donnis Rushin. Judge for the show was Dr. H.A. Hermann of Columbia, Missouri, and had noted the quality of the cattle in Hopkins County by awarding several "purple" ribbons and a total of 151 blue ribbons.
Dairy Festival Candidate, Sandra Cates, rode this beautiful float depicting the children's
classic story of "Black Beauty." Note the milk cans beside the mailbox.
The open dairy show competition was held on Saturday, May 8th, while free milk was being served to tourist, as a promotional effort on Interstate-30 and a number of downtown businesses featured window displays in their storefronts.
Interesting facts about the Hopkins County Dairy Industry in 1965 included: More than 400 Grade-A Dairy Farms; 25,500 dairy cows in the county; more than $10,000,000. annual dairy income in the county; an average gross income per dairy farm of $23,000.; first in Texas for number of producers; first in Texas for both Grade-A and Grade-B dairy farms; the largest evaporated milk plant in the Southern U.S. (Carnation Milk); 58 bulk milk trucks in operation in the county; the center for the major milk hauling operations in Northeast Texas; and home of the only Stainless Steel Milk Tank manufacturer in the Southern U.S. Dairy farming had become "big business" in Hopkins County.
And, yes, that's Gilda Gideon (Landers) who was pouring milk for "King Midas," to give him the golden
touch, on this 1965 parade entry. "Looks like she had used some of that Aqua-Net hair spray to fix
her "do" for the parade. What do you think?
As a result of the the dairy industry in Hopkins County, the local headlines read, "Sulphur Springs Bank Deposits Hit New Peak." Combined deposits in the three local banks, State Bank, City National Bank, and Peoples National Bank, totaled $18,595,098. on April 26th, 1965. Combined loans were for $9,284,312. and all categories of the local banking industry reflected a healthy dairy economy, that was on the increase.
Noted headlines included some features of local dairies and the new developments that were happening on their farms. One feature was of the Albert Stone Dairy Farm in the Star Ridge Community, where he had just installed a "modern" automatic feeding system, and a picture showed him and his nine-year-old son, Preston, feeding the cows with the system. And, a relative newcomer to Hopkins County, from West Texas, was D. G. Smith and his recently Texas Tech graduated son, Don, who had moved here "because the grass was greener in Hopkins County, than in their former home of Childress." The Smith's had just constructed a new "modern" dairy barn on their over 400 acre dairy farm in the Star Ridge Community, and had purchased 25 Holstein Cows, with hopes of increasing the herd to 100 some day. However, they were "taking the growth slowly" and focusing on sprigging their pastures with Coastal Bermudagrass.
Another feature reflected three teenage boys, Don Gammill, 19, Willie Gammill 18, and Reed Gammill 14, who did most of the milking on their father, Bill Gammill's dairy farm. Three boys admitted that they didn't get much help from their nine-year old little brother, Ricky, but that he helped feed the calves, sometimes. The Gammills had relocated to Hopkins County where the family had originally resided, but more recently lived in Dallas. Bill Gammill was supplementing his dairy farm income with a local Pepsi Route, in Hopkins County, and had the boys doing most of the milking, with all having hopes of someday becoming Hopkins County dairy farmers.
Ashcroft-Wilson Ford was advertising their new "Ford Fairlane" car for only $2,476.00 and reflected "Easy Credit Terms" for your purchase.
And, it was Marcus Hill, president of the Sulphur Springs FFA Chapter, that was honored as the "FFA Boy of the Year" at the Sulphur Springs FFA Banquet. He was serving as Paris District President for the FFA and was the President-elect for the Sulphur Springs High School Student Body for 1965-66. His supervised farming program consisted of beef cattle. And, Richard Watson, another member of the FFA Chapter, had received the Dekalb Award, as the outstanding graduating senior of the local FFA chapter. His farming program consisted of registered Holstein dairy cattle. Speaker for the Father-Son FFA Banquet was Benny Mays, a former chapter member.
Other notable headlines around Hopkins County in May of 1965, included that Saltillo School's integration program had been accepted by the state and would be implemented with the 1965-66 school year, and that the Como-Pickton Consolidated School District had hired a superintendent for the following year, who would begin with the new fall term, when the two Eastern Hopkins County schools would consolidate.
What are your favorite memories of 1965? Did you know that "Elvis" was to be featured the week after Dairy Festival in a movie at the Mission Theater?
Janet Bailey Shieldes lives in McKinney, Texas, where she is
actively involved in a number of volunteer organizations.
"My family has a long history in Hopkins County and I'm so proud to have represented the area as Dairy Festival Queen in 1965," states Janet Shieldes. "Both of my parents were born in Sulphur Springs and owned Bailey Insurance, Realty & Abstract Company, which was founded by my Grandfather, M.C. Bailey, in 1911. My mother's parents were, Pearl Corbet and Judge T.J. Tucker. He served as County Judge, County Attorney, and Justice of the Peace, and they were both from the Miller Grove area of Hopkins County. My uncle, T.J. Tucker, Jr., was employed during his teen years by the Carnation Milk Company, under the management of Roger Plummer, Sr."
"I'm fortunate that my mother, Rosemary Bailey, served on the Hopkins County Dairy Festival Board for a number of years, after I was queen," acknowledged Shieldes. "That way I've been able to continue to see the progress of the organization!"
"I feel that participating in the Hopkins County Dairy Festival let me discover a beauty within, and a calmness that has seen me though the years," expresses Shieldes. I can remember one of my questions in the pageant was 'Could a girl be a boxer?' My answer was that a girl could be whatever she wanted to be, but that I wasn't interested in being a boxer!"
"The Dairy Festival experience taught us competition and teamwork, in an age that was before Women's Lib, and a time when girls didn't really compete in other ways," remembers Shieldes. "I'm proud to have gained the experience and I'm looking forward to being a part of my hometown's tradition, by attending the 50th Anniversary Celebration of Dairy Festival in June 2009!"
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