Grangers keep booths thriving as part of fair’s unique charm

Jim Lyle strives for color consistency in Grange Booth entry.

Picking the green peas out of the yellow splits that act as the background for the Whitman County Junior Grange booth at the Palouse Empire Fair brings back a lot of memories for Jim Lyle of Ewartsville.

“I’m 62 now, and I think I’ve been doing this since I was about seven years old,” Lyle said while putting the finishing touches on the booth Tuesday. “So you do the math on how long that’s been. I hate to think back that far.”

LaJeanne Proctor and Carol Lawson, members of the LaDow Grange, replicate a Whitman’s Sampler box for the county Pomona booth.

For the past half-century-plus, Lyle, a member of the Ewartsville Grange, has been one of the dedicated members of Whitman County’s grange organizations that carry on an age-old tradition of putting together the booths.

“I remember coming in here with my folks, and these booths would be lined up all the way clear to that wall down there,” said Lyle, as he pointed down the south wall west end of the fair’s display building.

This year’s booths are laid out in patchwork styles, a nod to the fair’s “Sampler of Life” theme this year.

Split yellow peas make the background of the Junior Grange booth.

Black jelly beans mark a border around the design, and yellow and white beans mark an interior background.

Decorative squares from past displays give this year’s Junior Grange booth a link to those past times of swinging grange halls and committed volunteers.

While the number of booths has fallen to five, the detail of their design remains as complex as it was when Lyle was a little boy.

The fair opened this morning, Thursday, and runs through 5 p.m. Sunday.