Maple City Tractor Club show "a super big success"
The Maple City Tractor Club's weekend show at the Somerset County Fairgrounds in Meyersdale this past weekend was "a super big success."
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"The Somerset County community once again pulled together to make this show a super big success," said Dave Berkey, the show's founder and organizer. "The weather was great all weekend and not too hot but mild and the rains didn't show up until Sunday evening after everything was over."
Berkey indicated that the tractor pull on Friday evening had 101 hooks and there were 92 tractor entries on display for the weekend. There were 10 teams for the horse pull on Sunday afternoon with a packed crowd in the Decker barn.
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Allen Rhoads of Stoystown was one of the tractor exhibitors and also a member of the Roof Garden Tractor Buddies square dancing group that performed Saturday afternoon. Rhoads brought eight Masseys from his collection to the weekend show.
While there were plenty of green John Deere tractors and red Internationals, Massey Ferguson and Massey Harris are other brands of tractors in the farming world and were unique in the local show.
The company started out in the 1890s as Massey-Harris Limited in Canada and in 1953, Massey-Harris merged with the Ferguson Company to become Massey-Harris-Ferguson, before finally taking on its current name of Massey Ferguson in 1958, according to Wikipedia.
Their headquarters are now in Buffalo, New York, and the company is part of the conglomerate AGCO as a major seller in international markets around the world, says Wikipedia.
"Massey is the biggest manufacturer of tractors in the world and second behind John Deere," says Rhoads. "We had one when I was growing up and in 1998, I had the chance to buy one similar to that one we had on the farm when I was young. I've been hooked on them ever since."
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He says that after he became a member of the Roof Garden Tractor Buddies, he began collecting them and participated as a driver in the group until recently. Rhoads has many prized pieces, including a 1953 M, H and F and 1958 MF, a Massey 1944 orchard tractor among others. He has tractors that came from Lapeer, Michigan, New Jersey and Erie.
"I go to a lot of tractor shows," said Rhoads, "but we enjoy coming here to the Maple City one because it is relaxing and nice to see friends over summer while the weather is nice."
Like Rhoads, the Will family of Somerset has made it a practice to attend the show's garden tractor pull on Saturday evening as a family.
Jeff and Linnie Will and their son Ryan, his sons Kyle, 10, Colson, 5, and their daughter and son-in-law Heather and Eddie Herrin's son Dierks, 7, bring out their best competing garden tractors for competition.
"It's a great project because it teaches the kids responsibility," says Linnie. "They have a lot of work in the tractors in order to compete. Our grandson Kyle started pulling at Listie when he was only three years old before they set an age limit of five years. We've done this as a family for years and enjoy it."
At the horse pull on Sunday, 10 teams competed with four teams in lightweight and six in heavyweight divisions. Tom Bowman of Orangeville in Columbia County won the heavyweight category and Cody Bowman, Tom's nephew, of Orangeville won in the lightweight. Horsemanship trophy in heavyweight went to Butch Lepley and Jason Ritchey, both of Meyersdale, and horsemanship in lightweight went to Correy Wagner with Don Sherwood's team from Tunkhannock in Wyoming County.
This article originally appeared on The Daily American: Maple City Tractor Club show in Meyersdale a huge success
