It turns out that Northfield native Shaina Lyon has been the ideal person to take over running the back end of VLCT’s Town Fair 2022. For instance, she immediately figured out the intricacies of Pheedloop – which may sound like something gone terribly wrong in a recording studio but is in reality the sophisticated web-based event and registration platform that allows Town Fair attendees to connect with exhibitors through their registration portals, schedule appointments, view training tracks and sessions, or pose questions to speakers.
A Hospitality and Tourism Management degree from Northern Vermont University, where she also spent time as a Tour Guide in Admissions, plus an employmental stint at Norwich University planning in-person, virtual, and hybrid events whetted Shaina’s appetite for coordinating large-scale functions and gave her the ideal (there’s that word again!) background for the VLCT gig, which began, no fooling, on April 1.
The mention of tigers and bears in the title up there? Why, that’s because Shaina’s life has long been filled with animal companions – a total of thirty by her count. Currently her home features three dogs, two cats, seven fish, but no canary. Erstwhile companions include more dogs and cats along with a menagerie of hamsters, bunnies, a green anole (Anolis carolinensis), a bearded dragon named Clover (“She was a lot of fun but having to both contain and raise crickets was a ton of work.”), a male Nubian goat named Captain Midnight (“He was considered my sibling. My friends were terrified of him.”) and two guinea pigs named Chocolate and Marshmallow (anagram: local noodle washcloth memoranda). No tigers or bears, but that’s likely an oversight soon to be rectified.
When not planning events or tending to her animal companions (no canaries, though), you’ll likely find Shaina sharing her downtime with her husband and other Northfieldian human family members, or simply sitting down to draw, doodle, paint, or knit. (I’ve always wondered: Could a person, given a sufficient quantity of steel wool, knit a stove?)
Shaina also once built an obstacle course in a gymnasium to play “The Floor is Lava” as part of a Northfield and Williamstown after-school program. It’s too early to know if similar entertainment will be featured at Town Fair 2022, but one can always hope!