INAVALE FARM IS STILL Oregon’s Mane Event

That headline spanned the full sports page of the Corvallis Gazette-Times. The story featured the farm of Norm and Alice Glass with a half page photo of their daughter Carolyn and husband Luigi.

While we were here on Puget Sound some 360 horse trailers streamed past our house on Airport Avenue south of Corvallis on the way to Inavale Farm. Hundreds of spectators drove past to watch the Horse Trials featuring exciting steeplechase type jumps along with some technical drills. It’s the only such course in Oregon with competitors coming from all over the west.

It’s a big deal, as the newspaper pages demonstrate.

If you’ve been faithful readers of the blue sheet through all these years you’ve heard about Inavale Farm. It was mentioned at the time we were involved in a memorial event for more than a dozen horses that died in a tragic fire. It was a sad day.

For the last decade or so you have read about our Easter Sunday Champagne Brunch held at Inavale Farm. It is a big deal…for us. Most of our group has never attended any of the horse events at Inavale Farm or taken advantage of the kennel service that Alice manages or participated in the programs that teach young people to love and care for and ride and train their horses.

Our Easter group knows that Caroline has been famous for many years because she bakes and decorates the Easter cake. Luigi has had a big hand in creating a welcoming entrance, among other things. But when you read their story the truth is out. Cake decorating is definitely a side line

It’s rather normal for us to think that whatever we are doing is the biggest event in town. If you only read the blue sheet you might think that Easter is the “main event” of the year at Inavale Farm. But if you opened the newspaper on June 22 you would know that for thousands of people in the horse world Inavale Farms Horse Trials is immense.

On the other hand, who knows what is the biggest thing that happens there…or anyplace? Often it is the smaller moment that is most memorable. The story of Jesus is filled with reports of individual “moments” more often than big occasions. There can be individual “main events” going on in the midst of a “mane event.” I’m sure that there were enough life-altering events on that one weekend on the farm to fill a book.

I realized that just seeing the words “Inavale Farm” filled my mind. It’s a “moment thing.” It’s amazing that this hard to find farm at the end of a remote road in Benton County could draw such crowds and be a stepping stone for some horse and rider to get to the Olympics.

And it’s amazing that Alice and Norm have seen their hopes and dreams for their farm turn into a community and regional institution. You’ll have to ask them what they think is the “main event” at Inavale Farm.

Their 50th Anniversary is this summer. It probably won’t win a headline, but for my money it rates as a “main event.” ─ Art Morgan, June30, 2008