Feathers, Frizzles, and a ‘Big Chicken’: Inside the 51st White River Poultry Club Fall Show
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At 9:00 on Saturday morning, Sept. 5, 1,684 birds, 169 exhibitors, and several vendors descended upon the Owen County Fairgrounds. By 2:30 that same afternoon, all that remained were a few stray feathers. What caused this acceleration of avian activity? The 51st Annual White River Poultry Club’s Fall Show.
Around 2,000 people from around the area and state brought their birds to compete for Best in Show and awards in their breed categories as well as showmanship. Poultry are judged Best in Show according to the American Poultry Association’s Standards of Perfection. While you may see an odd duck or a funny old bird elsewhere, the poultry on exhibit at this show are championship material. Readers familiar with the American Kennel Club’s Dog Show have a good idea of the framework of a show like this, but the American Poultry Association had already been established for 11 years before the American Kennel Club was even founded. Poultry exhibitors have the same enthusiasm for their breeds as canine exhibitors have for theirs.
“This show brings in people from all over the country, " said Bill Pursell, Vice President of the White River Poultry Club, and self described “volunteer floater” of the White River Poultry Club’s Fall show. “Go around and take a look at some of the license plates, you’ll see them from everywhere.”
The White River Poultry Club’s shows attract around 4,500 people each year. In the state of Indiana, only four American Poultry Association and American Bantam Association sanctioned poultry shows remain and Spencer hosts two of them. The White River Poultry Club’s Spring Show is traditionally the first show of the Midwest region’s poultry show season and their Fall Show kicks off the Midwest’s fall season. Pursell has been here to see it all, being one of the White River Poultry Club’s founding members in 1976.
“We were founded by two 16-year-old kids with $100 from the Chamber of Commerce,” Pursell recalled. “The first year we did the show we had 410 birds and had no idea what to do. At one point [along the way] we were borrowing cages from seven different county fairs.”
Since then, the show has quadrupled in size to become one of the top poultry shows in the state. Pursell has noticed a lot of changes since then, mainly, the state of the poultry exhibition landscape.
“When we first started, a lot of [the shows] were competing with each other to get the most attendance. Now we all mostly work together to promote the whole hobby,” he said.
The number of poultry shows has dwindled over the years, mostly due to local poultry clubs aging out and folding. Pursell noted that the White River Poultry Club has stayed relevant and thriving with constant youth outreach. The fall show in Spencer has a separate youth show that had many exhibits this year.
“Different members of ours each work with their own 4-H clubs in their counties and encourage all the 4-H showers to come out and do this too,” Pursell said. “I think it’s critical to bring in young people and show them what we do and get them involved.”
The poultry shows bring a lot of guests into Owen County but their influence ripples outwardly, too. Members of the White River Poultry Club worked with researchers at UC Davis to breed frizzle chickens to help determine what in their genetics causes their unusual feather growth. Locally bred frizzle chicken eggs were shipped to California from Owen County to give researchers examples of frizzle chickens for genetic testing.
But perhaps the most famous chicken in Owen County is tightly integrated with the history of the Poultry Show. The Big Chicken at the Owen County Fairgrounds ended up at its current roost through its connection to the Poultry Show. The big chicken used to watch over the former Frosty Drive-In along N. Fletcher Ave./U.S. 231N. Since the chicken was such a prominent fixture in Spencer, the White River Poultry Club had used its likeness as part of their advertising. Jim Vance, founder of Boston Scientific, purchased the chicken when the land that the Frosty Drive-In was located on was purchased for the construction of Boston Scientific.
“Jim had the chicken, and he had wanted to put it down in Cooper Commons,” Pursell said. “The park board at the time didn’t want it there but Jim did. We [the poultry club] wanted to keep it around because we were so associated with it. I reached out and asked him if he would want to put it in the corner of the fairground, overlooking the park instead, and that’s where it’s been ever since.”
Spencer’s big chicken is most likely a white leghorn, but it would not place very well in the poultry show. According to Pursell it’s downward sloping tail would knock it out of contention in any competition.
“The nice thing about the poultry circuit is that people are competitive but they are also cooperative,” Pursell said. “We are all striving for that standard of perfection, that no bird can ever reach but the process of trying to get there is what it’s all about.”
