Clouds Keep Turnout Low at Heritage Fair

The third day of the Valley Heritage Fair at Valley College started off with a bang Monday.

“We woke up the neighborhood,” said Nevada Smith, part of a cowboy 21-gun salute during the morning flag-raising ceremony.

Smith--whose first name is actually Larry and whose day job is as a telephone installer from Simi Valley--later traded blanks with other members of the Misfit Cowboy and Gunfighter group in simulated Old West gunfights.

Just a few yards away at the college’s football and track field, another group recreated 15th century Irish/Scottish villages, burning Irish peat on an open fire and trading stories about their heritage.

However, the crowds at the fair--in its second year--were low on Monday, possibly because of cool temperatures and an overcast sky that occasionally produced scattered raindrops.

“It is disappointing,” said Richard Hardman, founder and president of the American Heritage Foundation Inc., which hosts the fair. The fair also included Native Americans and a group of Buffalo Soldiers, little known African American cavalry troops from the 19th and early 20th centuries. “It’s a great show. We give a lot of good entertainment for two bucks.”

Hardman guessed that although the turnout for the entire weekend was low, it still was three to four times larger than last year’s festival, which drew 2,000 people.

Also among the exhibitors and food booths were Richard and Felissa Kaplan, art dealers from Calabasas who were promoting a Unity Declaration Resolution. The Kaplans said they were trying to collect 1 million signatures supporting a resolution to promote intercultural tolerance. They started the project--which includes a sculpture showing hands of different cultures circling a globe--after the 1992 Los Angeles riots, Richard Kaplan said.