12/26/2009

By SHARON MONTAGUE, Salina Journal

Eight years ago, the man who normally mashed the potatoes for the Bill Fekas and Family Christmas Dinner was going to be out of town, so Fekas asked Donald and Kay Bishop if their son, Donald Bishop II, might be available to help.

Donald Bishop II mashed the potatoes for the dinner that year, and he's come back to help every year since.

On Friday, he was at the mixing bowl in the kitchen of the 4-H Building during the annual dinner, adding the perfect blend of butter, milk and salt to the potatoes as the beaters whirled.

"I haven't had any complaints yet," he said, not taking time to measure the ingredients.

He tasted as he went the first year, he said, but ever since, he's judged the potatoes by the consistency of the mixture.

Bishop, of Gypsum, was one of many volunteers who helped with the 27th annual dinner, serving some 4,500 meals to hungry people in the building and throughout the city. By 10 a.m., 70 meals already had been delivered -- 47 of them to a nursing home -- and Fekas expected volunteers to deliver many more before the day was over to people reluctant to venture out in the howling wind and blowing snow.

Volunteers began Thursday preparing 300 pies, 150 turkeys and 900 pounds of mashed potatoes.

"We worked all day yesterday and all night last night," Fekas said. "We've been at it since Monday, getting the groceries and starting to prepare things."

Early Friday, they set up tables in the 4-H building for their guests and began delivering meals. In addition to serving the meal, volunteers gave away loaves of bread, toys and candy donated by area businesses.

Fekas, a Salina chef, couldn't count the number of volunteers who helped with the event.

"There's just too many," he said.

He said it costs about $16,000 to put on the dinner, including the cost of renting the 4-H Building.

Dorothy and Bill Brown, of Minneapolis, have helped for 10 years. They celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, Dorothy said, and have nothing else to do on Christmas.

"We feel it's really a wonderful cause," she said. "We enjoy it, the fellowship with all the other people."

Donald Bishop II said he spent Christmas Eve with his children, but they spend Christmas with their mother, so he enjoys spending the holiday at the community dinner.

"It's something to do on Christmas Day, instead of sitting home and doing nothing. It's good community service," he said.

He arrived at the 4-H Building shortly after 8 a.m. and started mashing potatoes.

"I won't stop until 1:30 or so, whenever it's over," he said. "That's all I do, mash potatoes."

Nearby, his mother, Kay Bishop, helped dish up meals. Usually, his father helps, too, but he was ill this year, Kay Bishop said.

Kay Bishop spent her day Thursday peeling potatoes and breaking apart bread for the stuffing.

"We sit in a circle, peeling potatoes and talking," she said. "Time flies when you're having fun."

She said her children go to their in-laws' homes on Christmas. She and her husband started helping with the dinner in 1997, after her mother-in-law died.

"We get to see the same people year after year. It's fun. Plus you get to meet some new people each year," she said. "It's part of our Christmas now."

The dinner also was a Christmas tradition for Kathy Terry, of Salina. She and her husband used to attend every year together before he died about three years ago. This year, she attended with a friend, Jamie Clark, of Salina.

Asked what brought him to the dinner, Clark said, "bad weather."

"I couldn't drive," he said. "My mom lives in Chapman. The roads were bad that way, and the wind is terrible."

Weather also interrupted the travel plans of Terry's relatives, who were to drive to Salina from Council Grove and Garden City.

So instead, the two spent the day together, at the community dinner.

"It's pretty good," Clark said.

nSharon Montague can be reached at 822-1411 or by e-mail at smontague@salina.com.

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