Lois Andrewjeski hasn’t always loved horses, but she tells that Sunny Jim was the best horse ever. “I never could ride horses but Sunny Jim knew when I’d start to get off balance. He would stop and let me get back into position and off we’d go herding cattle.”
Lois grew up mainly in the city until Robert Andrewjeski, her husband, moved her out to the country where the two bought the farm where they live today. In the early days, they farmed and raised lots of cattle. “We’d move cattle all over the state which created a need for horses that Robert loved and I hated,” tells Lois. “I was never very good at riding horses and the first one Robert got for me was a little horse but it ran away with me once and I never liked it. My second horse was Sunny Jim and he was the best horse ever.”At one point they went to a horse auction and Robert fell in love with two beautiful, white, half Percheron and half Draft mares. He bought those and soon after bought a black stallion sight unseen. The man who had the horse told Robert he thought the stallion had the potential to be a show horse. Robert took that stallion to two draft horse shows and won Grand Champion ribbons at both places.These wins became the beginning of years of shows and fairs that the family would enjoy together. “Going to fairs became our way of vacationing and getting us off the farm,” Lois tells. It wasn’t very long before Robert had a six-horse hitch and was winning nearly every show he entered. In 1980, Robert and Lois signed up to take three horses to the Benton Franklin Fair and Rodeo for exhibit only. Since then, they have been at the fair every year, this making their 38th year. “
When we first started going to the BF Fair and Rodeo, they would put us out back or under a tent but never in the horse paddock by the rodeo ring. That paddock was reserved for the racehorses, we were told. One year, it was really stormy and they had set up a large tent for the horses to stay in. I was by myself that night staying in the tent with the horses. All of the sudden the tent fell down on me and the horses. I hollered and hollered for help. Finally, someone came and got me out of the tent but wasn’t about to help get the big horses out. I had to go in and get them. The horses were frightened but calmed down soon. After I got them all out, we put our horses in the racehorse paddock and they’ve been there every fair year since.”
Showing the horses was the reward for the many months of hard work that it took to break them. Once, Robert got a call from a guy who knew of two horses that were full brothers (Pete and Ruck). He felt they had a lot of potential. The only catch was that they had never had a bridle on them. Robert bought them sight unseen and had them put on a truck and shipped from Illinois to Washington. On the way to Washington, the driver stopped at a fair in Fargo, North Dakota to let the horses get out for a bit. Unfortunately, those horses slipped from his grip and ran wildly through the fairground and carnival. “I’m not sure how they got them back in the truck but I do know that they didn’t let them out again until they got to my farm,” laughs Robert. Pete and Ruck took some time to break but once they were, they became Robert’s best swing team in his six-horse hitch.
“At 16, our daughter Helenka, was a natural at showing,” remarks Lois. “She would win every show she entered. At one point, she decided instead of competing in her junior age categories, she would just compete in the ladies (adult) categories. She did and she won so many of them that the fairs would get calls ahead from potential ladies who were considering showing to find out if Helenka was showing. If she was, they would choose a different fair knowing she would probably win.”Going to fairs is still part of the Andrewjeski’s summers. They have traveled to Spokane, Coeur d'Alene, Puyallup, Yakima, Hillsboro (Oregon) and Vancouver. The Puyallup fair is their largest fair with around 800,000 people who come through to look at and pet the horses. “It’s a family thing,” smiles Lois. “It gets us together and gives us time to hang out and have fun. That’s why we keep doing it.”
