Staff
They’ve come and gone, but for those who participated in the recent Wild Pink Yonder tour, it’ll be an awfully long time before they forget the effort put forth by the organizers, businesses and citizens of Rimbey and had plenty of good things to say about Hoadley and Winfield as well.
“Oh my Lord, it was out of this world. We were taken aback. My mom and I thought we had a good idea when we put this all together and we thought it would be a really fun thing to do, but it wouldn’t fully take shape unless people liked the idea as well and run with it, and did Rimbey ever run with it,” said project manager Rusty Hurl, son of trail boss and organizer Jane Hurl. “Lynn Johnson with the Rimbey Ag Society and all the wonderful people out there did an absolutely amazing job of ‘pinkifying’ the town.”
As the tour’s manager, Hurl said he wasn’t on a horse but rather was driving around performing a number of duties when he got a phone call from one of his leaders as the tour approached Rimbey, and immediately he said they were in for a big surprise.
In fact, the two were discussing pink bows that were lining the entryway into the community, despite the fact they were still a mile and a half away.
“It was wonderful, just wonderful. Between all the effort put forth making the town pink to the supper that was put on for us and the amount of people that turned out for that, and the dessert later which was also wonderful, and again, all the people that turned out and showed their support towards our cause – it was absolutely amazing,” Hurl said in a telephone interview from Beaumont. “I…I…I’ve run out of words to describe it.”
Being ever so diplomatic, he was reluctant to say how the effort put forth by Rimbey matched up with other communities on the trail, but still had high praise for the town.
“I know what you’re kind of getting at there, but all I can say is that your town was amazing,” he said. “We’ve had a ton of wonderful support all along the trail, and your town was absolutely amazing.”
From Beaumont, the tour headed to a hall just east of Sherwood Park to overnight before embarking on the final leg of the tour, which ended last Friday in Josephburg where they were treated to a barbecue, concert and musical ride and demonstrations by members of the Lord Strathcona Horses, an arm of the Canadian Armed forces.
Before they got there however, the tour made two more stops in the local area including Hoadley and Winfield, both of which will also leave many good memories.
“I loved Haodley! We took off from Rimbey and it unfortunately took longer than we thought to get to Hoadley, but regardless, the people of Hoadley were absolutely fantastic in their support. They prepared a lunch for the general public, but when we were running late, they brought hamburgers to us on the trail. It was great. I was very impressed,” Hurl said. “We received the same kind of reception in Winfield – a full house for dinner and a family dance and everything like that – the support has been absolutely unreal.”
Initially, the plan called for Hurl’s mother to lead the way however that all changed on May 31 when while training her team for the tour, she was thrown off the wagon leaving her with a number of major injuries.
Nevertheless, the elder Hurl, who’ll remain hospitalized for another three months, said there was no way she was going to miss a visit to Rimbey, despite the fact she suffered a broken spine in five places, a broken hip in three places, a broken left leg and loosened and cracked a previous hip replacement.
“I thought Rimbey’s effort was over the top and absolutely stellar. As a matter of fact I was bound and determined that I was getting out of here and I was going to see Rimbey in action because I knew it was going to be something,” she said last week from her room in an Edmonton hospital. “I was absolutely not going to miss Rimbey. I knew it would be a great show.”
As for the number of dollars raised in each stop along the way, the younger Hurl said he won’t have the final totals until later this summer or possibly even in September due to the fact that several communities along the trail don’t hold their annual summer rodeos and exhibitions until August and will be using those venues as backdrops for fundraising efforts for the tour, which will be forwarded to breast cancer research.
Either way, Hurl, speaking on behalf of the organizing committee and all the participants, said they were very grateful for the support they received not only locally, but all the way along the trail.
“I’d like to send out a big thank you once again to everybody out that way from us at Wild Pink Yonder. We were floored by the support we received and the amount of people that really liked what we were doing and encouraged us,” Hurl concluded. “It was really great and I would like to sincerely thank everybody on behalf of myself, my mom and everyone with Wild Pink Yonder. It was a fantastic visit.”