past show reports

Western Regional Button Association
2006 Show Report

By Gil Biggie, Show Manager

The WRBA show was a great success,- however, I have biased opinion as show manager.

The workshop on Vanity buttons was jammed full. About 40 people attended and there were many, many samples- Lots of people out there collecting those little specimans. There was so much information passed, that now we are talking about forming a committee to work with National on getting a better definition for the classification AND getting all our collective information into a book form. Very exciting, since one of the chief missions of WRBA is education.

The Cheshire Jewel presentation had several trays of jewels which Joy Journeay scanned at the show and she is creating a worksheet with colored samples. The worksheets will be based on the info in Just Buttons, but pictures will be clearer and in color. It will be published in the WRBA Territorial News. (available only to members, btw, ...ahem)

Trudy Graber's presentation on How to Compete in Moonglows was also packed; attendees said they will never look at moonglows the same way again. Trudy's showroom exhibit had some very rare samples offered by Lucille Weingarten, who wrote the West German glass book. Jim Schee brought a lovely exhibit on Women's Land Army, which complimented Dorothy Krugner's exhibit and informative presentation on the National Recovery Act. These, too, will be published in the Territorial News.

BTW, Kudos to WRBA's editor, Joy Journeay. The Territorial News is more like a well done magazine.

Gary Brockman's presentation on Wonder Bread and High Art was one of the finest he has done. His wonderful photos ( He actually found designer buttons that matched the wonder bread wrapper) complimented a fine presentation of the entire culture of the post war years, enjoyable even for the non button collector.

Our show button is a Medium Uranium glass Martian, designed by Kathy Hoppe and made in Czeck republic. The button came on a 9 x 11 card with a zany graphic of Nevada in the 50's done by a famous local artist. There is room on the card to add more uranium buttons. We gave out a pen that writes with invisible ink and has a black light on top so that one can read the writing and make the button glow.

We had a slide presentation on how the show button was made, from raw glass rods to final painting, with a pictures of the artisian painting our button. This presentaiobn was by the producer himself, Mr Adolph Hujer, who came in from the Czech Republic! We also had attending the show, Tomas Novotny, owner of a button factory in Czeck republic,

The theme of the Wonder Years had many people show up in various outfits, but Joan-Peggy-Sue-ring-around-her- neck-Lindsey won the "Bowl Me Over" award for outstanding effort. The Parkhursts of Washington got the Grand "Bowl me over Trophy" for all their creativity, only moments after they arrived on the planet with two other Purple People Eaters (Gil Biggie and Gloriosky) in the rear drive interplanatary purp mobile express to deliver the show button. They were a few minutes behind schedule because on the way from Purple People Planet they got rear ended by a Martian who learned to drive in Massachusetts. We had Elvis there to lead the singing of the "senior version" of Are you Lonesome Tonight?

Dance lessons in The Stroll, Hand Jive, Lindy and the Twist were led by Fran Howells; and Bruce Cole took on Fran and Gil Biggie in the Peppermint Twist and ran them both into the ground. Gayl Seimer, Mika Jarmusz, Ann Olson and Bruce Beck can really cut a rug as well!

During the show, we ran the tape of Janelle Giles' 1/2 hr nation wide television interview on PBS. That interview had to be an impressive boost for the button hobby!

The Awards breakfast ended with Gloriosky back in her Mickey Mouse Ears, joining in a pep song invite to the next show written by Betty Parkhurst and sung by all the Washington State members.

There were wonderful dealers from all over the country, lots of fun crazy social get togethers, and educational opportunitys galore.

I would like to publicly thank all who contributed, including our own Ronnie Wexler, who stood in for our treasurer.