Family fun at Threshermen’s Reunion

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Published on Saturday, August 11, 2018

By Eoin Devereux

Neepawa Banner & Press

It was another successful year for one of the province’s most engaging celebrations of agriculture, as the 64th annual Manitoba Threshermen’s Reunion and Stampede was held in Austin from July 26-29. 

Over the years, this family-oriented event has become an outstanding showcase for the province’s agricultural roots. The combination of the vintage farm equipment displays, live music and an array of children’s activities has proven to be a tremendous draw. 

In a correspondences with the Banner & Press, Manitoba Agricultural Museum interpretation committee member Alex Campbell noted that over the course of the four days, the average attendance was very good, with the Saturday numbers, in particular, being excellent, as the grandstand were full to capacity for both for the Saturday afternoon show and evening rodeo.

It was also an exciting finale to the threshing competition, which consisted of a steam crew facing off against a gas crew in threshing. As well as being judged on the speed of set up, loading of sheaves on the racks and threshing, the crews are penalized on the number of sheaves missed in loading the racks and the number of sheaves misfed into the thresher. 

2018 was a hard fought battle between gas and steam and while the steam crew won the Sunday event, over the four days of Reunion the gas crew had a seven-second advantage in total time which meant the gas crew is the 2018 threshing champions.