Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 3, 1994 TAG: 9412300006
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: W9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHARLES STEBBINS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"There's a lot of interest in buffaloes," said David Sverduk, manager of Hollow Hill Farm at Paint Bank, where the event was held Oct. 22.
He said the interest in the buffalo - a traditionally Western animal - can be attributed to a revival of interest in the Western motif in many areas of life - clothing and food among them.
Also, buffalo appeals to the diet-conscious, he said. "It has low-cholesterol meat. It's just what people are looking for," he said.
The 5,000 attendance was a little more than double last year's event, Sverduk said. "And last year's attendance was about double from the year before that."
This year's auction and festival was the third annual event held by Hollow Hill Farm, owned by John Mulheren, a stockbroker in New York City. Mulheren is well known in the Roanoke area as a benefactor of Roanoke College.
Sixty-eight buffaloes were sold at an average price of $1,581, Sverduk said.
They were sold, mainly for breeding, to buyers from throughout the Eastern Seaboard, the Midwest, Texas and South Dakota.
"Barney," a 2-month-old buffalo bull, was sold for $2,500 to a Virginian who plans to raise him as a riding animal, Sverduk said.
At the auction, however, Barney was a hit with children, who took turns bottle-feeding the baby and petting it.
The festival part of the event included a Native American powwow featuring dancing, costumes and crafts.
Also included were other early American crafts, fiddle bands, a six-shooter exhibition, a mountain man rendezvous and seminars on raising buffaloes.
Sverduk said the auction and festival is intended to help spread the popularity of buffalo and to sell excess animals in the Hollow Hill herd. The farm still has about 300 buffalo, which Sverduk said is the largest buffalo herd in Virginia.
He said the fourth event will be held at the farm next fall.
Hollow Hill Farm is on Virginia 311, about 38 miles northwest of Roanoke.
by CNB