Celebrate 60 years of Coaldale Rotary with an Out of the Barn Hoe-Down

By Stan Ashbee
Sunny South News

Many Lethbridge County residents, no doubt, enjoy a good old fashioned hoe-down. The Coaldale Rotary 60th Anniversary Out of the Barn Hoe-Down featuring Great Canadian Barn Dance is being held Oct. 3 at the Coaldale Community Centre. Featuring Rookus Juice Hour at 5:30 p.m., Chuckwagon Fixins at 6:30 p.m. and Boot Scootin’ Lessons and Dance at 8 p.m. There will be line dance lessons, toe-tapping music, a calf-roping contest, a silent auction, a trail blazing raffle, door prizes and a $1,000 raffle. The Rotary Club supports Coaldale’s social sustainability since 1955. All Hoe-Down proceeds directed to local projects.
Tickets for a darling and beau $60/couple and a bunkhouse crew for a table of eight is $240. For tickets contact colleenvalin@hotmail.com or pick them up at the Coaldale Food Market. For sponsorship information contact 403-345-4994 or 403-345-4662. This is a first-time event.
“It’s a new event for us. For a number of years we did a golf tournament in the fall and then we did a fish fry in the spring,” said Mary Thompson, president of the Coaldale Rotary but the international organization made the decision to do one big fundraising event.
Thompson added this is a good year for the event because February marked the 60th anniversary of the club’s founding.
“This is one of the oldest clubs in this area. It was one of the first ones founded,” she said, adding the Coaldale club has 12 members.
According to the president, the general focus of the club is social sustainability through working with organizations with a variety of youth development programs.
“We bought musical instruments for the middle school and high school and put a lot of money into soccer fields, baseball and activities like that,” said Thompson.
She also noted the club helps out other groups and organizations in need.
“We’re an inclusive club.”
Rotary’s idea for a hoe-down was simple — it’s something different and it’s got an agricultural and western theme.
“People like line dancing. Some of us don’t know how to do it yet,” she joked.
From looking at other organizations, Thompson explained, the Rotary Club believed a hoe-down event was something no one else was doing.
“We chose a niche no one has occupied.”
Thompson said she thinks the interesting thing about the event is the event is very active and has a variety of activities planned.
“We’ll have live music and we’ll learn to line dance, those of us who can’t. We’ll have the regular dance. We have a beef on a bun dinner. We have several, really nice, prize draws and door prizes. It’s an all around fun time — a good old fashioned fun time for the community and for us too,” said Thompson. The funds raised from this year’s event will go towards what the club decides at its strategic planning session later in the fall but it will go towards a socially sustainable project.
“We know where some other clubs are doing interesting things within Coaldale and we might want to look at helping them or we might ask them to help us on something,” said Thompson.
Thompson added she hopes those in attendance will have a really good time at the first-time event.