During the day, M.H. Keeny, the dairy specialist at the New Jersey Experiment Station, supervised judging of the pure-bred calves and cows. In the afternoon the Delaware Valley Poultry Club of Titusville gave a demonstration on the handling and packing of market and hatching eggs. During this demonstration a basket of hatching eggs they had packed was thrown around among the crowd. Afterwards, when the basket was opened, not a single egg had been broken; however, one was slightly cracked.

Following this demonstration, A.M. Hulbert, state leader of Boys’ and Girls’ Club work, gave a talk and then the ribbons and medals were awarded. William Burd won the gold medal awarded by the Mercer County Holstein-Friesian Association and William Hansen and Stella Hansen won ribbons awarded by the community executive committee of Pleasant Valley. In the category of best trained and fitted calf Mary Hansen won first prize, Stella Hansen second, and Joseph Johnson third.

Throughout the day refreshments were available for purchase and in the evening there was entertainment and music in the packed schoolhouse. All in all, the event was considered a great success and brought some notoriety for the excellent hard work and organization skills of the entire community.

The 1921 Community Day was so successful that a second was held in August of 1922. This was essentially the same type of day as the previous year but the events were expanded. There were now 21 members of the club and they exhibited 28 animals. Again, it was the biggest Calf Club exhibit in the state. Judging was done in eleven classes of cattle and, again, there were exhibits in the schoolhouse and lunch was served to the visitors.

Beginning in 1923 the event was titled the Pleasant Valley Calf Club Fair and the club continued to be the largest in the state. Expanded animal judging included classes for barred rocks, white rocks, Rhode Island Reds, White Leghorns, Black Giants, Pekin Ducks, and Pigeons. Beagle pups had a class. Both sows and boars had classes among the hogs. New vegetable categories included classes for corn, peppers, strawberries, plums, grapes, apples, peaches, peas, cucumbers, crab apples, tomatoes, carrots, sweet corn, lima beans, beets, string beans, wheat, rye, and soybeans. For the comfort and enjoyment of visitors, the food service was expanded to include “a big old-fashioned farmer’s supper … prepared by the mothers of the calf club members, and served by the girls who are members of the club, from 4:30 to 8:00 o’clock, and in the evening dancing [with music by the Jamesburg Boys’ Band] will be a big attraction for the young folks.” In the afternoon Calf Club President George Wooden introduced Alvin Agee, the Secretary of the New Jersey State Board of Agriculture who spoke about how the state was providing funds for boys and girls to buy pure-bred stock and how the work of the Calf Clubs was “laying the foundation for rural living. He said that the boys and girls who remain on the farms may go a little slower than those who seek success in cities, but will find that they have made the wiser choice.” In describing the event, the newspaper referred to it as a combined fair and harvest home. The exhibits demonstrated that the people of Pleasant Valley “are thoroughly alive to the advantages of purebred stock and that it is their intention to become the more prosperous of the dairymen and agriculturalists in the state is evident from the interest manifested in their present occupation.”

The Pleasant Valley people were showing themselves to be very progressive and energetic farmers. In addition to the Calf Club Fairs they were also putting on an annual Pleasant Valley Corn Show in November. This event was also held at the schoolhouse and in 1923 it was held on a Wednesday evening, November 21. Yellow and White Cap Dent corn and Green Mountain and Russet potatoes were exhibited and the judge declared the produce exhibited to be “some of the best that he had seen this year. He stated that the corn was well selected and as free from root rot as any he had seen in the county so far.” In addition to the judging, the farmers heard talks on various aspects of corn culture. The decision was made to take an exhibit of this corn to the state exhibit at the armory in Trenton.

The annual Calf Club Fair was becoming very well known and attracting an increasing number of visitors. The 1923 fair had so many visitors that the fair organizers had difficulty feeding everyone efficiently. Articles on the 1924 fair stated explicitly that they had earned from their mistakes and were better equipped to both prepare and serve the chicken supper. There were now 30 boys and girls in the club and it included members from as far away as Harbourton and Titusville.

By 1925 the club was more formally known as the Pleasant Valley Junior Dairy Club with several branches, such as the Junior Cow Testing Club. The latter group had a meeting at the schoolhouse in May where they learned to test milk samples under the supervision of Mr. Turpin. In addition to specific dairy information some meetings of the club were to hear speakers on such topics as the value of good, clean, wholesome food, and exercise and sleep. At the May 18, 1925 meeting organized by Dorothy Wooden, who would begin teaching at Pleasant Valley the next September, the girls put on a play and the public was invited to attend the whole meeting. That summer the club attended a tour of the Walker-Gordon Dairy with the club from Yardville. After the tour the two clubs played a game of baseball that the Pleasant Valley club won 26 to 3.

A Calf Club meeting lead by Mr. Turpin in the Pleasant Valley Schoolhouse in the 1920s.

In 1926 the fair expanded to a two-day event and included serving two dinners plus lunch food, soft drinks, ice cream, etc. and the entertainment was expanded with the addition of an outside wooden platform for dancing in the evenings. It must have been a strain, though, and the next year they went back to one day, but they kept the outside wooden platform for dancing.

1928 was something of a highlight year for the Calf Club. On May 9, 1928 the Hopewell Herald reported that Edward Brady and his son, Leon, a member of the Pleasant Valley Junior Dairy Club, motored to Cream Ridge where a fine Ayrshire heifer was purchased for Leon. The same day the paper reported the annual Pleasant Valley fair would be held August 15. As plans for the fair developed there was much talk about adding an award for a beauty contest to select a “Miss Pleasant Valley.” The contestants would be bovines, of course. Leon’s heifer won the contest in August and then went on to enter the “Miss Mercer County” contest at the Hopewell Junior Dairy Show in September. Again, Leon’s heifer won and went on to enter the Inter-State Fair in Trenton where she won grand champion in the Ayrshire division making the people of Pleasant Valley extremely proud.

Leon Brady and his prize winning heifer in 1928.

About this time 4-H Clubs begin to be mentioned in the paper and the same people in Pleasant Valley who had been in the Calf Club were attending 4-H Club meetings. It doesn’t appear that a fair was held in 1929 or 1930, perhaps due to the beginning depression. It appears that a fair was held in 1931 and a two-day fair in 1933. However, in 1935 Pleasant Valley people participated in the Mercer County 4-H show at the Trenton Fair grounds. While Hopewell still had a “junior dairy club”, Pleasant Valley now had a 4-H Agricultural Club that supplanted the Calf Club. 1935 was the fifth annual Mercer County 4-H fair so it appears this may be why the Pleasant Valley fairs faded away in the early 1930s.

Life in general was becoming less focused on the community as the automobile expanded the range of easy contacts. The number of children attending the Pleasant Valley School was declining and the schoolhouse was only using one room after 1930. The school actually closed for the 1933-34 school year before reopening for just two years before final closing in 1936. By 1938 the school had become a private home and no longer served the function of community center. Children were now leaving the Valley for school in Titusville and more were going on to high school and even college as the agricultural population continued a slow decline. But during the 1920’s, the Woodens, Burds, Hansens, Hunters, Johnsons, and other extended Pleasant Valley families came together in a vibrant community that both achieved notoriety for the Valley and must have given the people a gratifying sense of pride in the accomplishments of their community.