Emily Lampa and Mercedes Wilson visited the Nya Weh Indian Village at the Erie County Fair. They spoke with Blaine Tallchief and his father Elliott Tallchief. When asked what is the message they want to send out, Blaine says “Just to perpetuate that our people still exist. There’s a lot of people out there that think that we were conquered by the Europeans but that’s not true. Like I said our people are still around, we have a culture. And, it is important to share the culture and we say there are still babies being born and we have to have our culture intact for them to carry it on for the seven generations yet unborn and it is very important for us to keep it going.” His father Elliott Tallchief is a wealth of knowledge and welcomes people talking to him and asking questions. He says he has a lot of answers to your questions so just ask and he will talk with you.
There is a lot of fantastic food at the fair including in the Nya Weh Indian Village. Showing us today is their strawberry beverage made from real strawberries and water and Blaine says you can sweeten it with sugar or maple syrup. The oldest food dish they are showing us today is the corn soup. A more contemporary food is the fry bread. Blaine is showing us a single pizza fry bread and a fry bread sandwich made with beans. While you are at the village you can listen to the music and watch the dancers perform. The shows run at 1:00pm, 4:00pm and 7:00pm.
Food glorious food. Mercedes and Emily are two of the food judges for the fair. Check out their adventure as they taste some all the wonderful food that the fair has to offer. If you want to see who won all the food judging it is up on the Erie County Fair website, ecfair.org. Jessica Underberg, CEO, Erie County Fair also says the winning stands will have a banner hanging in their stands as well.
Mercedes talks with Jessica about being proud of this year’s fair and everything that has happened so far. Jessica says, “You know it’s funny, first of all I have a rock star team, they are excellent, they are dedicated, 12 Best Days of Summer and we still have three days left but you know it has been a phenomenal fair and you know we can talk attendance, we can talk revenue, we can talk blue ribbons and all that kind of stuff but is bigger than that. It is a community impact. On the first day we raised 96,000 pounds of food for FeedMore WNY and that’s 80,000 meals at a time they need it most.”
If you are looking for an RV, you can find Myers RV Superstore there with just a few of the many options available to you at their RV store. Today, Mike
Entertainment is all around the Erie County Fair and there are shows you can watch in several areas of the fairgrounds. One act you can see is Hilby the juggler. He has been doing this for nine years. Some of the things he juggles include balls, bowling balls, knives, yoyos, he rides a unicycle and when he is outside he even uses fire. You can see his performance at the Family Entertainment Complex on the Evans Bank stage. The shows are at 1:30pm, 4:30pm and 8:30pm.
For more information about the fair go to ec.fair.org.
