BUTTE -- When Annette Hale walks toward her stable, all eyes are on her. Her 17 ponies cluster at the fence on her 2 1/2-acre property in the Butte, their ears pricked forward, nuzzles out for a chance at a pat or a treat.
Hale's control is such that, if an animal or several wander out of their enclosure, "I can call and the whole herd will come running," she said.
A recent rainy morning was a rare Wednesday off for the state's longest-running pony wheel owner, who is a regular at the Northway Mall farmer's market and the Sears Mall parking lot in Anchorage each summer. For more than 20 years, Hale has frequented the weekend markets in Anchorage, the Fur Rendezvous and Eagle River's Bear Paw festival.
But the big show, the one that takes Hale several days of preparation to set up her 12-up wheel, starts Thursday. The 2007 Alaska State Fair marks her 25th anniversary as a vendor and is possibly her last. Hale's been trying to sell her business -- the ponies, the rigs, and the wheels -- for several years. She's come close a few times and has a potential buyer in the wings.
Until she sells, Hale remains responsible for her "babies," as she calls her animals. They've been a constant part of her life since she and then-husband, I.W. Hale, decided on a whim to offer rides for small children in 1982. There weren't any offered at the fair in those days so Hale secured a vendor permit, I.W. knocked together a six-up wheel out of wooden tines and a pick-up bed and they set up shop on the outskirts of the fair, where the sand sculpture sits today.
"It was an instant success," Hale recalled. "We charged $2 a ride; we'd go around four times and people would wait through the one-hour pony break for a chance."
She walked countless miles in the wheel's circle that first year, worried that her young customers, unsecured by seat belts, could take a tumble without constant supervision. It never happened. Except for the occasional pinched finger, Hale said, she's never had a serious injury on her ride
But she has plenty of stories about children screaming when the ride ends -- or before it starts -- of parents handing over wads of cash for consecutive rides, of funny remarks her customers make, of business ebbing and flowing as the fair moved her twice to her present location on the Purple Trail.
"A lot of people who rode when they were little are now bringing by their babies," Hale said. "I do get to know people. I'll get calls asking where the wheel will be because their kids are lonesome for the ponies."
In preparation for the eventual sale, Hale sold off her young stock five years ago and 10 acres where the ponies lived. The ones that remain are veterans like Cookie, the matriarch, and Diamond, who debuted at the fair 20 years ago when he was 2 weeks old. The horses are eager to go to the fair and eager to come home, loading themselves up in 10 minutes when it's all over.
A final state fair is a prospect Hale considers with mixed feelings. It's been a family business, giving jobs to her four children and those of her longtime employee, Rosemary Hill. And she's watched the fair grow to a cast of thousands.
"It's like you're building a city. All of a sudden everything is there and then it all goes away," she said of the fair's set-up. "It's a lot of work but it pays well and we always pray for sunshine."
Contact Melodie Wright at www.adn.com/contact/mwright or 352-6721.
