A Guide To Historic Salem - Vol: 2 No: 1 Spring 1996 Salem Has Horse Show History 1932 Horse Show Had 77 Entries by Lon Savage Horse shows have been a part of Salem for a long time -- well before the ultra-successful Roanoke Valley Horse Show now celebrating its 25th anniversary, as excerpts from City Council minutes clearly attest. In the years before World War II, in fact, Salem people had horse shows every year or so, it appears. "I remember four of five I rode in," recalls R. Franklin Hough of Salem, whose father helped organize the events. "They were sort of schmaltzy compared to today's show, but they were good horse shows." Awards were trophies and ribbons, rather than the thousands of dollars offered as prizes by the current show, but "people were as happy to get those ribbons as they could be," according to Anne Taylor Oakey of Salem, daughter of another organizer. One of the most successful was a show in October of 1932, conducted by the Salem Horse Show Association and Salem Kiwanis Club, "on the Roanoke College field," according to Town Council minutes, and somewhere in Langhorne Place according to others. The show drew 77 entries, in thirteen classes including two in jumping, two each in three- and five-gaited saddle horses, and children's, ladies' and gentlemen's horsemanship events. Officers of the Association at that time were W. Alex Oakey, president; Frank H. Vest, secretary; and Frank C. Wiley, treasurer. A Kiwanis committee consisted of C. E. Webber, T. E. Burke, Wayne McDaniel, Russell Johnston, Carl Gottschalk and J. B. Taney. All are remembered. Alex Oakey was a bachelor and community leader. Frank H. Vest was a businessman and father of the current Episcopal Bishop of Southern Virginia. Frank Wiley, Anne Taylor Oakey's father, was a civic leader and developer. C. E. "Ted" Webber was a pharmacist, later to become owner of the Evans-Webber house on Broad Street. Russell Johnston ran a hardware store. Carl Gottschalk was "a German with a lot of intelligence," they say now. And so on. Nine years later, in May, 1941, according to Town Council minutes, the Salem Horse Show Association put on a horse show for British relief, and progress was evident. The show, held at Dixie farms just west of town, had 31 classes, prizes of about $1,200, seating for 3,000; and tents serving as stalls. Association president was James L. Wiley, Frank's son, who went on to become a major operator in horse sales and training in Northern Virginia. Council's minutes before the event refer to the 1941 event as "the first show in Salem for a number of years," with the hopeful comment that, if it should become "a booming success, it may well become an annual event." It did not. Later minutes report little more than "a representative crowd attended." Town Council minutes were silent about horse shows for twenty years, until the Horse and Pony Club of Salem gave a horse show on August 26, 1961, at Waldron Stables. Nothing appears thereafter until 1972, when the minutes reported preparations for the first horse show in August of that year sponsored by the Roanoke Valley Horsemen's Association. Excitement was evident: it was the first "A" rated indoor show in the state, with more than $10,000 in prize money. The rest is history.