Fundraising food booths Fair tradition

MOSES LAKE - The Grant County Fair was officially open less than four hours, and already the crowds were swirling around the Block 40 building. By 11 a.m. the line was starting to form outside the Lioness Club booth, as customers looking for those spaceburgers.

The Lionburgers were starting to move at the Ephrata Lions booth. They weren't having any trouble selling soda and water, given the unique ice that comes in every cup, spit out by the old cool quirky machine. And the special Lion ears fryer was busy at the Moses Lake Lions booth.

Certain kinds of fair food are as much a tradition as the fair itself.

Almost nobody leaves the Grant County Fair without a spaceburger and in order to keep things moving the Lioness Club has that booth organized.

One person tends to the hamburger kettle; the bread line is the next stop, where four volunteers pile the meat on white bread slices, add the secret sauce and lettuce, and pass them on to the volunteers working the sandwich-sealing toasters.

Ding, ding.

"Ten Space Burgers."

"Thank you!" An order of 10 Space Burgers or more rates a ringing bell and thank you from the whole crew.

Volunteers come from as far away as British Columbia to pull a shift in the Lioness booth, organizer Michelle Boeteger said. In fact most of the volunteers in the booth Tuesday morning were fellow Lionesses or people who had benefited from Lioness generosity.

Shelley Robillard was there because the club gave scholarships to both her children. Mary Anne Bennett is part of PEO, a group that gives scholarships to women.

But volunteers are still at a premium. "We're always looking for volunteers. Yeah, say that," said Gaylene Bruneel, from her station on the sandwich-making line.

The Ephrata Lions do sometimes run short of volunteer help, but every year they have the assistance of kids in the Junior Jogger program, one of the club's projects, said Linda Ebberson, the Lions member running the booth Tuesday morning.

The Lion burgers attract a lot of customers. "Flame-broiled. That's what makes them good," Ebberson said. They sell other things at the Ephrata Lions booth, Lion dogs and soda pop and stuff like that, but people come back for the ice, spit out by the century-old ice machine.

At least the patent date is 1903 or so, and according to Lions legend it was used during the construction of Grand Coulee Dam in the 1930s, the ice mixed with the concrete to keep it drying properly. Then it went to a dairy back in the day when milk came in bottles, and then to the Lions.

"That's our baby," said club president Herb Reynolds.

"Sometimes it costs us a fortune to fix it," Ebberson said. But they pony up the money because the machine and its ice is, to coin a phrase, cool.

The ice machine is solid metal, as tall as Ebberson and about five feet wide, so it stays in its back room at the fair year-round. The ice comes off a rotating drum, the blades shaving off slices as it moves.

"It's the best ice at the fair," Ebberson said.

So, how many Space Burgers, Lion burgers, Lion ears, pizza slices at the Moses Lake Band Boosters and Block 40 ice cream cones do the groups sell each year?

"A lot," Boeteger said.

"A lot," said Leo Gaddis, who was running the daytime shift at Block 40's ice cream operation.

"A lot," Ebberson said.

"A lot," said Dennis Foster, who was the Tuesday morning boss at the Moses Lake Lions booth. "I don't think we've ever really counted. They are extremely popular." One year even the health inspector told volunteers the Lion ears were the best at the fair, said Susan Hickock, who was running the Lion-ear-making crew Tuesday.

They're made from scratch, using a time-tested recipe, and equipment that's been around forever. By the fair's end the Lion-ear-cutting machine will be so full of flour it will need a pressure washer, said Robin Hickock, who was cutting Lion ears Tuesday morning.

Block 40's ice cream machines have been around for a long time too, but they're still spitting out the most popular soft-serve at the fair.

Gaddis said working the booth, which for an ice cream shop is pretty warm, is both work and fun. "You meet a lot of neat people," he said. Erin Johnson has volunteered for a couple of years, and it's hard work. "But it's fun," she said. Her favorite job is making the cones, swirling the soft-serve. The biggest downside is when the milkshake machine goes crazy. A runaway milkshake is sticky, she said.

It's five days of hard work, and a lot of it, but the volunteers don't really mind. "It's a lot of hard work, but once you get here and you're doing it, it's fun. Meeting people is always fun," Foster said.