USU students participated in traditional Scottish sports and dances at the inaugural Cache Valley Highland Games, held at the American West Heritage Center Saturday. About 2,000 people, many wearing traditional kilts, gathered for a day of bag-piping, haggis eating, dancing, singing and Scottish feats of strength. Irish and Scottish style dancers and singers performed throughout the day, while on a nearby field men and women from across Utah tried their hands at various traditional Scottish games, which generally include throwing heavy objects such as rocks, iron objects and wooden tree trunks as far, high or accurately as possible.

This year’s Utah state championship was fought in the Weight Over Bar event, in which a 56-pound bell-shaped iron weight is heaved with only one arm over an ever-rising bar.

Perhaps the most well-known event is the Caber Toss, in which a 16-foot tapered wooden pole weighing almost 100 pounds is picked up and thrown end over end for accuracy. Matt Rahmeyer, civil engineering junior, won first place even though he’s only been throwing caber for three months.

“The object is not how far you can throw it, it’s accuracy,” Rahmeyer said. “You actually hold the small end with the fat end up in the air, and you run in a straight line, and you turn it (end over end). You want the small end to fall directly away from you, and that’s called pulling a noon.”

Rahmeyer said he practices with a Smithfield group called Sons of Thor. He likes participating in the games because it gives him a chance to connect with his roots, which are Scottish, Irish and Welch, Rahmeyer said. Anyone can sign up for the different games and give them a shot, he said, but there are many different divisions depending on gender, skill level and body weight.

Heather Davis, first-year pre-psychology student, won the women’s division for the Sheaf Toss by using a pitchfork to toss a 12-pound burlap bag up over an ever-rising bar. Her top height was 15 feet, she said. Davis said she was surprised she did so well, because she first tried the event about eight days ago. She liked it so much, she plans to compete again in two weeks at the Highland Games event in Pocatello, Idaho, she said.

At the performance stage, a new USU student named Kelsey Crane leaped with pointed toes to fiddle, flute, bagpipe and drum music. Crane is a four-time U.S. champion in Scottish dancing. Crane said she has entered USU as a sophomore and will study biology and family, consumer and human development. She’d also like to teach Scottish dancing in Cache Valley, she said.

Walking among the crowd with bagpipes and snare drums faintly audible in the background, Andrew Ermer, sophomore in biology, said he came to the festival to enjoy Scottish tradition. Ermer said he picked up the bagpipe a few years ago inspired by his boss James Pitts at the USU Bug Lab. Ermer said he plays the small pipes, which aren’t as loud as the larger highland pipes and are better played indoors. The droning noise under the melody acts a lot like the bass player’s part in a rock band, he said.

Tressa Haderlie, senior studying family finance, traveled to Scotland this summer with a dozen USU students on a trip led by photography teacher Craig Law. While in Scotland they went to a real Highland Games event held on the high school field in a small town called Cupar, she said. It was a lot like the Cache Valley festival, except there were more competitors at the Scottish games, she said. Many of the photos taken by Law’s students will be exhibited in the Tippetts Gallery in the Chase Fine Arts Center. The exhibit opens Friday, Sept. 4, from 7 to 9 p.m.

Festival Director Dianne Siegfreid said Scottish roots run deep in Cache Valley. A trapper named Ephraim Logan lived in the area in 1824 and attended the mountain man rendezvous in 1825, where trappers traded pelts and furs. He traded with the Shoshone Indians and it may have been the Shoshone who named the Logan river after him, Siegfreid said. When the first pioneer settlers arrived years later, they named their first settlement after the Logan river.

The name Logan is a Scottish clan name, one of a group of family names from a distinct area in Scotland, Siegfreid said. At Saturday’s Highland Games there were 18 different clan representatives who set up stations for people to learn about which family names come from which part of Scotland. Amanda Jensen, sophomore who’s applied for the early-childhood education program, said she’s fascinated with her Celtic heritage. Her family name is associated with the McIntire clan, she said.

More information about the Utah Scottish Association can be found at www.utahscots.org. Students who want to practice Highland Games events with the Sons of Thor can e-mail Ken Graves at kgcaberhurler@gmail.com

–butler.brendon@gmail.com