Here's our 2010 reception bunch. The photo was taken July 14th, 2010. We're folks who got acquainted at the Evart dulcimer festival and now stay in touch year-round with an email list. We have over 530 members. The discussion generally centers on the festival or other topics of interest to folks who attend the festival.

Each year members of the list are able to identify each other at the festival with a "list button".

The list is a great place to have all your questions answered, and make plans for the festival.  If you think you'd like to belong to this group of folks, just click the button on the left to subscribe to the list.

Back about 1995, there were major complaints that there was no soap in the rest rooms. As it was explained, at one point, there had been soap dispensers, but kids had really made a mess of things, so they'd been removed, and everyone was expected to carry around their own bar of soap.

It was inconvenient, and to be honest, totally impractical because you don't always "plan ahead" to stop at the rest room, you just happen to be in the vicinity, or you're heading back from somewhere else. And it bothered us that the food preparers often used those rest rooms too. This was a major topic on the dulcimers@yahoogroups.com list.

A simple solution, was to buy soap at Fosters and put it in the restrooms (mainly the one by the Fair Board Office). Only problem was that it never seemed to "stay." The soap was therefore cut into small pieces so there'd be some throughout the festival.

After a couple of years of this routine, it came up on the list that I was "buying" soap for this purpose, and Judith as well as a few others, said they could get hotel-sized soaps when they traveled and they'd bring them to the festival. This created quite a competition. The first year it was nearly a tie between Robin Leggegowow (misspelled horribly) and Judith Lindenau. They brought their hoard of collected soaps from many exotic corners of the world. For the past few years Robin hasn't attended, so Judith has held the title .. unchallenged.

Never the less it was fun when she'd pull out her bag of soaps. We'd scramble to go through them. We voyeristically examined all the places she's traveled.

So Judith is the official Soap Queen. Of course the challenge was always there for anyone else who wanted to pit their soaps against hers, but no one could compete with with those from Tonga or Russia or Bulgaria or wherever else Judith roamed.

PS: A couple years ago, the fairgrounds had a change of heart. Probably pushed by the unsanitary situation which their "no soap" policy created. Now they have liquid soap dispensers in the bathrooms which is probably a good thing, because Judith retired and doesn't travel as frequently. She no longer brings her bag of soap but she is forever our "Soap Queen."