Bittersweet: The cotton candy ‘grandmas’ have worked their final state fair

PALMER — As young Alaskans roam the Alaska State Fairgrounds this fall with painted faces and hoarse voices from ‘Yo-Ho’ing’ too hard at the Lumberjack show, they will not be able to satisfy their cotton candy cravings at one of the oldest establishment’s in the Valley. Beta Sigma Phi has sold their cotton candy making equipment and will no longer offer their signature walkaway cotton candy on a cone as tall as the young fairgoer who ordered it.

The location of the Beta Sigma Phi cotton candy booth, directly across from other booths that offer cotton candy fostered a friendly competition. Sharon Cartrell looked back on 30 years serving cotton candy and recalled one young man who steered his group of friends toward their log cabin cotton candy booth.

“He says to me, I always get my cotton candy from the grandmas,’” Cartrell said.

Beta Sigma Phi is not a sorority involved with any college, nor is it a charitable sorority by nature, but the chapter in the Mat-Su Valley has been an integral part of supporting charities in the Mat-Su Valley with their time, money, and energy for nearly 70 years.

“It’s a little bittersweet having to give it up because we did really enjoy it,” said Charlene Renz. “Knowing that this last year was our last year to participate, it’s sort of a bittersweet feeling.”

A history written of Beta Sigma Phi lists the origin of 31 ladies who pledged citing a clip from The Frontiersman dated July 17 1950. The article in 1956 noted the sixth year of the Beta Sigma Chi booth at the Matanuska Valley Fair, where the Pioneer Home is located now. Beta Sigma Chi moved with the Fair in 1958 and began selling cotton candy to raise money for charities as early as 1964. Near the turn of the century, Beta Sigma Chi began offering coupons for summer reading programs.

“When the kids came up with coupons from the reading program, we would always clap and cheer and whistle and some of the kids would kind of cringe and the parents were grinning and everybody that walked by would look to see what’s going on, and we’re cheering them on that they have read as much as they did during the summer to encourage them to continue their reading,” Renz said.

Coupons for cotton candy was just one of the ways that Beta Sigma Chi helped to provide resources to Valley students. In the brief history of Beta Sigma Chi in Alaska, the notation of gross earnings from cotton candy is over $10,000, which was then split into two $2,442.58 checks to each chapter from the proceedings. The first $350 scholarship was given to Rita Rogan, who returned each year to donate to the cotton candy booth giving what she could.

“We are now down to less than 30 ladies in the Valley and you do 10-12 days at the fair and I think our youngest is in the 50’s. We just don’t have the energy, we just can’t do it physically anymore,” Cartrell said.

Cartrell and Renz joined in consecutive years, 1987 and 1988, and have been active at the cotton candy booth every year since. Cartrell would use her vacation from work to serve at the fair, often working the two weeks with their husbands and children, until child labor laws were enacted. Husbands were relegated to spinning the sugar while the wives worked the front counter.

“My husband, when a kid’s coming up the counter he would say well how tall are you and he would make it big big big and the father or the mother says that’s enough that’s enough and he keeps going,” Renz said. “He gets the kids smiling and the parents smiling and that’s the fun part of the fair for us in the cotton candy booth.”

Cartrell says that the ‘grandmas’ were the only cotton candy booth to offer every flavor and made popular by spinning walkaway cotton candy on cones as tall as the young Alaskan who ordered it. The first Beta Sigma Chi booth sold chili dogs and was made with borrowed tarps, rugs, and quilts. The 1951 booth had a wooden structure that was tarped but it was destroyed in a winter storm. The Valley chapter of Beta Sigma Phi has a long history of aiding charity in the Valley. In 1951, the Anchorage funeral home donated an old hearse, which was maintained as an ambulance for the first 10 years by Beta Sigma Phi. Joe and Virginia Gallant drove the Valley’s first ambulance as a husband and wife tandem: Joe drove and Virginia offered first aid. Beta Sigma Chi has donated time, energy or money to other charities such as the Mat-Su Valley Homeless Connect, Nugen’s Ranch, the Dorothy Saxton Home, the Children’s Place and annual competitions amongst chapters to donate as much food as possible to the Palmer and Wasilla Food Banks.

“I’ve got books full of thank you cards from local charities,” Cartrell said. “We’re still Beta Sigma Phi’s and we’ll still do our own individual fundraisers and charities and as long as we can continue scholarships so it’s not left behind.”

The cotton candy scholarship was raised to $1,000 in 1992, and in 2002, a donation from the estate of Frances Hulbert for $10,000 to be used for $2,000 scholarships over five years. Even after that donation had been used for scholarships, the Beta Sigma Phi’s still continue to donate whatever they can to Valley students every year, despite the loss of the cotton candy booth revenue this year. The cotton candy booth was not the only fundraising ingenuity that was employed by the Beta Sigma Phi’s.

“One of the major fundraisers was a yearly fashion show, but this wasn’t just a little fashion show. This was all of Anchorage, all of the Valley it was the fashion show,” Cartrell said.

The fashion show held at Central School, which is now the Borough Building ran until 1970, featuring a bride of the year and local businesses from Anchorage and Palmer showing off their spring style. Beta Sigma Phi has run floats in the Colony Days Parade since 1951 and sponsored a financial forum in 1957. Beta Sigma Phi hosted conventions in 1961, 1958, 1975, 1989 and 2000.

“We were hoping to get the younger women involved into the chapters because we are a women’s organization but they don’t want the commitment,” Cartrell said.

Beta Sigma Phi also ran pictures with the Easter Bunny from 1996-2007 when the Cottonwood Creek Mall closed.

“We had to have a bunny herder because you can’t see anything so you’d have to have someone to show you where to go,” Cartrell said.

For a group of women who have championed charity in the Mat-Su Valley for decades, the loss of the booth is like losing a group of old friends. Even though Beta Sigma Phi will still continue to support charities throughout the Valley, they will no longer be a part of bringing smiles on fairgorers’ faces with a spiral of spun sugar.

“Whoever was at the front counter would say we have a reader, and we would go yay reader!,” Cartrell said. “It became the thing with all of us old timers that for the real little kids that the cotton candy had to be as tall as they were.”

Contact Frontiersman reporter Tim Rockey at tim.rockey@frontiersman.com.