Message from the President June 2025

MEGA Fun at the Convention

This issue of The Carnival Pump arrives shortly after our annual convention, with this one happening in a very MEGA way by sharing the convention with the Heart of America Carnival Glass Association (HOACGA) in Columbia, Missouri. And as anyone who attended will tell you, this one was exciting and full of energy. It is my favorite convention of the past several years, very easily. I don’t remember the last time I walked down for breakfast at a carnival convention at 6:30 in the morning and then didn’t make it back to my room until 11:00 at night, having spent the full day with all the attendees, having fun, looking at glass and just smiling ear to ear. This was how I spent the four days at the MEGA Convention.

So let’s start at the beginning. Our early bird dinner on Friday night was held not at the convention hotel, but rather at Jimmy’s Family Steakhouse in Columbia. We had 56 people in attendance (I can’t remember the last time our early bird attracted so many people) and we sat at a big table, family style, and laughed, ate, drank, and truly enjoyed ourselves. It was a blast. Everyone’s order was taken in an orderly fashion and everyone had their food within 30 mins, which is unheard of anymore. The food was great, the price was right, and people were still talking about it at breakfast on Sunday morning.

On Thursday, the convention began with a bang. The Great Plate Display came together very quickly and we ended up with more than 400 plates in the display (which was spectacular, make sure to check out the photos from the convention!) The ICGA annual business meeting started the day at 8:30 am (we re-elected Mitchell Stewart as the vice President and three of our directors, as well as welcomed Heather Strawn to the Board (she was an integral part of pulling the MEGA convention together with her husband Ed!). Heather stepped in for outgoing director Ingrid Spurrier, who we love and appreciate so much for her fantastic years of helping run ICGA.

After a fun (and funny) seminar by Galen and Kathi Johnson showing how to use the Hooked on Carnival tools to jind just about any information available on pieces sold at auction, the gift swap/steal game began. Dozens of attendees brought a wide variety of gifts and carnival that were opened (and many times stolen) before jinding a new home. It was a lot of laughs, as you can imagine. After the game, Tim Cantrell and Sam Scott gave a fan-tastic seminar fea-turing beautiful glass (carnival, stretch and art) that each has col-lected for many years. This was followed by fun carnival games (in which some were very competitive), and then t h e horse racing began.

Tony DeMichael’s horse tacing game had people shouting support for their horse in 10 different races until the jield was whittled down to our two winners, who each won some glass. 🙂 And then after a fun night of sharing stories in the rooms, it was time to try and grab 40 winks before another fun-jilled day.

Friday morning brought the HOACGA annual business meeting, followed by our jirst great plate display seminar, “What is a Plate?” by Gary Sullivan. As you can imagine, the seminar was good, controversial (for some people) and well appreciated by attendees. As Gary said in his presentation, “Who imagined that after all these years of carnival glass collecting, people would still disagree about what a plate is.” Indeed.

After a quick lunch, it was time for the roundtable seminars, always one of the most popular sessions in our annual convention. We had six tables, each with a great 10-minute seminar containing beautiful and interesting glass to see, and the hour was jilled with sharing, information and a great time. Once the roundtables were done, it was time for the second great plate display seminar, this one focusing on contemporary and rare plates by Gary Sullivan again and Gary Lickver. Each showed wonderful examples in the display, and then just like that, the display was done and disappeared back into the collections of the people who generously donated their use and time.

After dinner, it was time for Tony DeMichael and Mitchell Stewart to discuss the contemporary glass in the auction, and then Scott Shefjield sold it all. Great time, lots of purchases were made, and people enjoyed all of it.

Saturday morning began with a preview of the con-vention glass from Scott Shefjield, followed by the Carnival Road Show by Annie’s Antiques. Annie looked at glass from multiple attendees and was able to use multiple tools to jind answers people had about their glass, including color, pattern, maker and more. Annie’s session led us right into the Mexican brunch banquet and seminar. People enjoyed a buffet of food while Anne and Max Blackmore brought several Fenton rarities to share.They discussed why each piece was rare and answered a lot of questions from attendees.The banquet seminar was followed with room display awards, the white elephant auction and more.

Finally it was auction time and attendees snacked on munchies throughout the evening as Scott Shefjield sold several beautiful pieces of carnival glass. And like that, the MEGA convention had come to a close.

There are so many to thank for making this fun convention happen. Both ICGA and HOACGA put together a committee that planned everything, and they did a fantastic job! On the ICGA side, help and work from Becky Cronin, Barb Chamberlain, Kenda Jeske, Mike Hendren, Ed and Heather Strawn and more really pushed the convention to the next level.Scott and Suzanne Shefjield brought us a great auction that many enjoyed (myself included) and we are very appreciative of their work putting it together in the middle of such personal adversity. So many great presenters and people who volunteered their plates for the display are also very much appreciated! A convention is only as good as people willing to put effort into it, and this year’s pushed the amount of effort into the stratosphere! THANK YOU THANK YOU!!

At the ICGA Board meeting, the Board voted unanimously to do MEGA2 next year, inviting HOACGA (and any other club who wants to join us) to participate in a big convention run by multiple clubs for the purpose of promoting the hobby and inviting as many people to attend as possible. We are looking across the midwest with our dates being back in July. Stay tuned for the ofjicial announce-ment with dates and location by the next issue of the PUMP!

Check out the pictures from this convention and plan to be with us next year!

Brian