Trade show offers industrial-sized delights

While displays of farm equipment and industrial machinery might not seem like crowd pleasers, such spectacles made quite a splash at the Ronan Community Events Center on Saturday during the 27th Annual Lake County Leader Trade Show.

From the towering, alien-like weed sprayers and wheel rakes lining the parking lot to exhibits featuring vials of preserved insects, the show promoted the latest and greatest technology in agriculture, construction and other industries.

Like the professions themselves, many of the booths were hands-on.

Dan Nightengale, a salesman at Ronan Irrigation, used a mousetrap-like contraption to demonstrate the superior quality of a line of industrial lubricants. As the trap snapped shut, a pair of pegs capped with dollops of grease smashed against a flat surface. The generic formula covering one of the pegs splattered instantly, while the special Texas Refinery Corporation brand grease Nightengale was selling stayed put.

Nightengale said the demonstration shows how his product would perform when used on gear boxes, ball joints and other equipment parts.

While impressive, the grease booth was not to be outdone by Launa and Tom Benson of Ronan’s Xtreme Weed and Pest Solutions, who featured an exhibit complete with actual bug specimens and a not-so-dormant wasp nest.

“If you see people freaking out, you’ll know why,” Launa Benson said, partly out of embarrassment and partly out of enthusiasm.

Benson said she stored the nest inside her garage all winter to use as a prop, but didn’t realize there were a few inhabitants left inside.

“This guy barely made it,” she said as a sluggish wasp crawled from the honeycomb and plopped onto the table.

Despite the potential for panic, there was no booth better prepared for such a problem. The Bensons showed their extermination prowess through a display case full of vials containing creepy crawlies collected from across Lake County. Benson said people think she’s crazy for carrying the bugs around, but providing customers with a tangible representation helps sell her company’s services.

“A lot of people have never seen bed bugs or black widows so it helps to actually show them,” she said.

Perhaps her scariest specimen was a wolf-spider so large she said it even scared her exterminator husband.

“It was the size of a mouse,” she said.

All flashiness aside, the show provided vendors a direct avenue to network and attract new customers. “It’s a good way to get out,” Nightengale said. “You always seem to get a few new contacts.”