22 Jul 2014 The village: Past and present put on St. Joseph Bazaar

by Donna Lampkin Stephens

It takes a village — literally — to make the St. Joseph Bazaar, one of the staples of life in Conway, happen every year.

Some families have helped pull off the feat for multiple generations. Others will be volunteering for the first time. All are welcome and necessary, organizers say.

“When I was a kid, I went around to every stand (on the midway),” said Bob Tyler, a 1954 St. Joseph High School graduate and a long-time volunteer. “I knew everybody and was related to most of them.

“Last year, I went around and knew some by looking at them because they looked like their parents. Others I didn’t know. We have a lot of people who’ve come in from (newer industry in Conway) who are really active and very welcome.

“We never turn down good help.”

His family is just one example of that village.

The 102nd Bazaar will be Aug. 1-2 on the grounds of the school near Harkrider Street and College Avenue. After a few years of variation, the schedule has returned to the Friday-Saturday date. Friday’s schedule includes box lunches, spaghetti dinner and a midway. Saturday will feature the midway with a raffle drawing for a new Jeep as the midway closes.

The auction that has been part of the weekend previously has been moved to Saturday, Aug. 9.

Tyler said the annual event “ties the whole parish together.”

“You meet people and get to work with people you don’t normally see at mass,” he said. “Now we have five masses. It’s always been a good builder of relationships. People come home for the Bazaar.

“Somebody said one time even if we didn’t make any money it was still worthwhile because of the relationships.”

According to its mission statement, the Bazaar exists “solely to benefit St. Joseph Schools.”

The website stjosephconway.org goes further:

“Begun in 1912, it offers parishioners and others a way to help provide financial support and a margin of excellence for the educational opportunities of students. In the implantation of this mission the bazaar maintains an environment that encourages and provides community interaction, continuity, fellowship, public service, leadership development, stewardship and evangelization, therein generating abundant opportunities for elevating the general good of the parish. The Bazaar is a ministry through which the parish expresses its commitment to being a loving, caring, joy-filled people dedicated to the growth of God’s kingdom and the living of the Gospel.”

Tyler’s mother, the former Catherine Moix, attended St. Joe. His father, Edgar, was a co-chair of the Bazaar in 1955, when Bob was in the Air Force. He began serving in 1961.

That year, after all the money was counted, the net proceeds totaled $9,995.

“Fred Halter was chairman, pulled a $5 bill out his pocketbook and said, ‘We’re going to make it $10,000,’” Tyler remembered.

One of the behind-the-scenes duties is coming up with the prizes for the various games on the midway. For years, each volunteer-manned booth was tasked with providing its own until a lapse or two led to the creation of the purchasing prize coordinator position that Tyler held for years before turning it over to his daughter, Jackie Harrell.

“A lot of the stands would under-order and some would over-order, so we set up a scientific way to figure out how many prizes we needed at each stand,” Tyler said. “Ray Kordsmeier Sr. and I started the procurement process in 1965. We purchased all the stuff except for the food items.

“After Ray left, I kept doing it until Jackie was old enough to help me. She’d always helped a little bit. She wasn’t married at the time. She was the last one (of seven children) to leave the house. I didn’t charge room and board; I figured I could work her.”

Tyler retired as president of Nabholz Construction in 1996. A few years later, Harrell, now 48, took over for her father.

“I didn’t realize it at the time, but my dad was grooming me,” she said. “I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I think he’s turning this job over to me.

She and her siblings already had many years of previous Bazaar experience.

“We were unloading watermelons and things for the Country Store back when I was 10, 11 years old,” she said.

The family participation has continued. Her brother, Richard, ran the ham and bacon stand for several years. Sister Bobbie Ann and her husband, Hank Merkel, are in charge of the hamburger stand.

Among Harrell’s favorite memories over the years are trips to Memphis to buy the plastic, glassware and stuffed animals used for prizes.

She and her parents planned a day of fun to go along with a day of work. Now they buy locally. She spends all summer leading up to the Bazaar on her quest.

Her sons, Austin, 20, and Connor, 16 (a St. Joseph student), also volunteer, but she said she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to eventually hand off her mantle to
one of them.

“If I had a daughter, she’d have to watch out,” Harrell said. “My boys are down there every year unloading tables, doing whatever. When they were smaller, they were sorting out animals and things, but they like the labor like the other men better. Austin said, ‘Oh Mom, we’ll keep hauling and unloading.’”

She jokes about retiring but agreed the role has become part of who she is.

“Sometimes you’re in the wrong spot at the wrong time,” she said, joking. “I do love it. I wouldn’t have kept doing it if I didn’t enjoy it. It helps you get to know so many people. It is neat and nostalgic that I took my dad’s job.”

She said each school family is expected to do 40 hours of service each year. The Bazaar is a good way to fulfill that.

“We’re kind of like the tie between the past and the present,” she said of the multi-generational volunteers. “Where we come in is some of these guys are not that familiar with the past, so there always has to be somebody to put out fires. But the new volunteers are priceless, and we need more of them.

“Eventually some of us are finally going to roll away. I’ve met some of the new ones. That’s the beauty of the Bazaar — there’s so much past tied into the present.”

It’s not too late to get involved. As soon as these festivities are over, plans will turn to 2015. Those wishing to volunteer should call Nicole Rappold, St. Joseph development director, at 501.327.1204.

“You can’t move up until you train somebody to take your spot,” Tyler said.

He should know.