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Friday November 2nd, The Store hosted an after hours party for the participants of 2007 Purgrain Gold Band Race. I know what you’re thinking – “Pigeons? Racing? We probably make some food for them at the mill...”… While the majority of the world views pigeons as dirty animals sitting on statues in parks to which kids go and feed bread, the Pigeon racing world is an exciting sport that has captured the hearts of millions worldwide. This community of people includes everyday people in your neighborhood, my wife’s own great grandfather, Queen Elizabeth II, Governor Terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger, and for you baseball fans Curt Schilling loved to race birds with his dad. These birds have been bred for decades with pedigrees, are conditioned athletes and if they are successful racers their offspring can be worth several thousand dollars. You might be surprised to know that these people hate street pigeons too because they give their birds a bad name, and yes, we manufacture and sell A LOT of pigeon feed. Pigeon fanciers had purchased bands earlier in the year and put the bands on their birds’ right after they were hatched – the beauty of this is that you did not know how well these birds would do because they had never flown, let alone raced. After being in several races these birds finally were brought to The Store for our special 300-mile Gold Band Race where they were entered into the clocking system for this race. They were driven down to Arcadia, Virginia where the Liberator evaluated the conditions and released the birds 8:00 AM Saturday November 3rd. The birds flew back to the individual person’s pigeon loft in their backyard – some of which are bigger than most people’s houses. Once they arrived home they were clocked again at about 2:00 PM that same day with the results taken to the Pigeon Club in Sellersville, PA that evening so that the winners of over $6,000 worth of prize money could be determined. Our first Place winner was Peter Chen who won $2,050. It was an exciting evening and I would like to offer my personal thanks to Dennis Rehrer who was invaluable to orchestrating this event, along with The Store staff and the many volunteers from the mill who helped make this possible.
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