The place was a sea of straw cowboy hats, sheriff’s badges, red bandanas and people drinking sarsaparilla out of glasses shaped like boots.

Saturday was a day of cowboys and can-can girls, horses and chuckwagon food, square dancing, games and entertainment, all with a Western theme, for more than 100 mentally challenged people who live in homes run by the United Methodist Agency for the Retarded (UMAR).

The event at Centenary United Methodist Church on N.C. 150 between Mooresville and Salisbury is officially called the annual Ken Shinn-UMAR Fun Day. It is sponsored by UMAR in honor of the deceased husband of Carolyn Shinn of Concord.

UMAR was founded in 1983 as a non-profit agency dedicated to providing residential services for adults with developmental disabilities. UMAR currently staffs and operates 19 homes across western North Carolina, from Asheville to Winston-Salem.

But nobody was thinking about those things at the Western fun day; they had too much else to do and see. A black and white wood cutout of a cow decorated with a sunflower set the mood as you drove into the church parking lot.

A horse trailer stood at the far end and a shelter marked “Watering Hole” provided a shady place to sit and drink the sarsaparilla or watch a sheep and a couple of goats duke it out in a pen. A wagon wheel leaned against bales of straw topped with pots of red petunias and a small stuffed fox.

The general store was a busy place, a large mural in front of which everybody got to have their pictures taken by volunteers in straw hats or flounced skirts. Just before lunch a man in a wheelchair tipped his straw hat toward his lap as he studied two Polaroid shots of himself. By now the aroma of burgers on the grill and potatoes in the fryer began to fill the air.

But lunch wasn’t quite ready yet, and the most popular spot by far was the barn dance inside the church hall. Bales of hay provided both decoration and a place to sit while a cowboy with an electric guitar sang, “I’m 41 years old and I ain’t got no place to go.”

Some people danced; some stood around drinking more sarsaparilla. A couple of people tried “riding” the wood sawhorses with saddles that were probably more successful as decoration than entertainment.

The real horses outside got hot and had to take a break in the shade under some trees.

At least one cowboy didn’t need a horse anyhow. He demonstrated his roping skills by lassoing the bull’s heads attached to bales of hay. Not real bull’s heads. Real hay though.

Reality slipped into the festivities for just a minute when a can-can dancer in a red dress came out of the dance hall calling, “Mom, your pager beeped.” Almost everybody ignored it and just kept on drinking that sarsaparilla, smelling the burgers and smiling.

In addition to the residents of the UMAR homes, family members, including lots of kids, joined the party, and about 30 volunteers helped with food and activities. Many of them came from Centenary United Methodist Church, but other Methodist churches in the Salisbury district also sent volunteers.