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Diablo View Orchid
Society Repeats!
For the second time the Diablo View Orchid Society took
top honors for its display at the annual Pacific Orchid Exposition.
The event is put on by the San Francisco Orchid Society and arguably it is
the largest orchid show and sale on the West Coast. We have taken
top honors 4 out of the last 6 years… but who’s counting?
Winning the category for ‘Best Exhibit by a Visiting
Society’ brings an award of $1000 for our society’s coffers.
We won the trophy for ‘Best Exhibit Illustrating the Show Theme’.
And we won the prestigious Orchid Digest Trophy, awarded to a
society or individual’s display demonstrating the best orchid variety
and quality.
| This year the POE Show Theme was ‘Orchids: Gems of
Nature’. Our display featured two mining cars filled to
overflowing with orchids freshly ‘mined’ from a cavernous orchid
vault laced with twinkling orchid gems. The backdrop for
the cars on tracks was a rock-face with a rich vein of gems cutting
through it. Parky Parkison conceived the display. The
mining cars he built (single-handedly) could actually roll on the
tracks and be tilted at any angle to display their wealth of orchid
contents. Alice Tomassini and Juan Bofill got pictures of
geologic strata for inspiration for the backdrop. Alice even
found rocks at a local quarry for coloring and pattern models.
So armed the display crew took up the challenge of creating a rock
wall out of 4x8 sheets of Styrofoam insulation. Led by Ron
Bettancourt, Brenda Aday, Kathy Barrett, Veronica Bettancourt,
Juan Bofill, Linda Daraskavich, Nancy Pak, Parky Parkison, and Dave
Tomassini whacked, hacked, filed, gouged, drilled, rasped, glued,
mudded, painted and stained the backdrop. (Remember? I told
you this one was complicated!) Then they got to disassemble the
whole thing in order to store it, transport it, and reassemble it at
the Fort Mason Center. Thank goodness Dave has a truck and a
van!
Once at Ft. Mason Dan West and Dan Chiappone joined the crew to
help with the install. The mighty penmanship of Brenda Aday,
Nancy Pak and Jeanette Bean graced the display cards. The team
is indebted to webmaster Nick Doe for use of his laptop and Wildcatt
program to aid in plant name research. Then Nancy, Jeanette,
Linda and |
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| Alice changed hats to artfully group our
orchids into the display. Of course I arrived too late to help
with the install at all. When I asked where the Diablo View
crew was, the answer I got was ‘You mean that group that partied
all day? They left an hour ago.’ Man! I missed out on
a good time!! |
But enough about the ‘hard’ work. On to the
rewards!
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Bob Van Galder won a trophy for
‘Best Oncidium Alliance shown by a Novice’ for his Oda. Joe’s
Drum. (Oda. Joe Marshall x Oda. Drumory)
Dan Chiappone won a trophy for ‘Best Paphiopedilum or
Phragmipedium shown by a Novice’ for his Paph. wardii (species)
Kathy Barrett won a trophy for ‘Best Dendrobium shown by
an Intermediate’ for her Den. Nellie Slade. (Den.
atroviolaceum x Den. forbesii) (This plant was purchased at the DVOS
1st Mid-Winter Orchid Auction in 1999– see?
You can get good stuff at these things!) |
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Dave Tomassini won a trophy for ‘Best
Paphiopedilum shown by an Intermediate’ for his Paph. Norito Hasegawa. (Paph.
malipoense x Paph. armeniacum)
If the count was correct out of the 101 plants in our 10’
x 20’ display we got:
24 - 1st Place Blue Ribbons.
11 - 2nd Place Red Ribbons. and
9 - 3rd Place White Ribbons.
Will we see your plants next year?
- Kathy Barrett
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