Ceremonial’s numbers look promising

By Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Ceremonial officials are still processing checks and revenue, but early indications are that this year’s event did well financially.

Jerri Poletto, the Ceremonial’s director, said it will be another week or so before final revenue figures are in but this year’s event did see some good crowds.

And the crowds seemed to be in a mood to buy.

The Exhibit Hall did more than $90,000 in sales, compared to $54,000 last year.

The Ceremonial received 25 percent of the selling price, and the owner of the item received the rest.

The Ceremonial’s take of $22,500 or so from exhibit hall sales was not enough to pay for the $34,000 that the association paid out in award money, but Poletto said it come close because some of the ribbons and prize money that were given out were paid for by various sponsors.

Louis Bonaguidi, the association’s board president, said the only negative point occurred on Friday night when rains probably affected crowds at the dance performance.

The rains began after the dance performances had started, he said, but many spectators come in late and that may have convinced some of them to turn back.

He said that when he got home that night and mentioned the rain, he got a ”What rain,” not knowing that the town itself remained dry the entire night.

Poletto said that when the rains began coming down that night, the dance performance was about a third over.

While some in the audience left as the rain came down, she said the dancers in the arena kept dancing “while members of the audience cheered and applauded.”

The rain stopped about two-thirds of the way through the performances and the remaining audience got to watch the rest of the performance under starry skies.

This all had a profound affect on her, this being the first year she has served as director.

“I was in the booth and I turned to Flo Barton and just said, ‘I feel I have the best job in the world,’” she said.

The Ceremonial in past years has struggled to make a profit and for several years maintained a bank debt of more than $100,000 it was trying to pay off. This mounting debt forced it at times to let the director go and run it totally as a volunteer program but the state of New Mexico agreed last year to take over the event and pay for the director and staff.

It was because of this that Ceremonial officials said earlier this summer that they hoped this year’s event made enough money that the bank debt could be paid off and the association would be able to go into 2008 debt-free.