The Jerome Humane Society will be combining its annual Woofstock concert fundraiser and Virginia Kennaway Day on Wednesday, Aug. 16, from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. at The Spirit Room at 166 Main St. in Jerome. In addition to the seven musical acts taking the stage, there will be a potluck, a silent auction and a 50-50 raffle with proceeds benefiting the Jerome Humane Society.
Her love for Jerome and its people has been bringing Kennaway, a Phoenix-based mobile veterinarian, back to the town on Thursdays and Fridays for the last 25 years in order to provide health care to animals whose owners can’t afford it.
“Nobody in Jerome goes without veterinary service if they can’t afford it,” Kennaway said. “We’re here for the animals. We say pay what you can when you can, and most people are great with that. So we have fundraisers to make up the difference, and we have membership.”
As an example, Kennaway can offer dental work on pets for $400 after their owners might have been quoted $1,500 elsewhere.
“We’re very busy,” Kennaway said. “We not only do Jerome, we take care of animals from all over the Verde Valley, and even some people come up from Phoenix. It’s been a gift [from] the universe to me to be able to go up there and do this and allow people who maybe would not have been able to afford veterinary service.”
“Virginia Kennaway Day was declared back in 2015 to acknowledge the bravery, diagnostic skills and professionalism of our Jerome Humane Society veterinarian of some 25 years, Virginia Kennaway,” the town of Jerome stated in its newsletter. “Local cats had been turning up with strange symptoms which Virginia quickly diagnosed as the dreaded bubonic plague carried by fleas that terrorized Europe and killed over fifty million people.”
Kennaway described getting a day named after her as “a wonderful surprise.”
She had read about a plague outbreak happening in the woods north of Flagstaff a few weeks before she started seeing animals showing a pattern of the disease in Jerome.
“I got suspicious,” Kennaway said. “I wasn’t sure what was going on at first. But then putting the pieces together, indoor-outdoor cat seen in the past couple of weeks with a rat or a mouse in their mouth. I called the state veterinarian, and said, ‘You may think I’m crazy, but I think we have bubonic plague [in Jerome].’ He gave me some numbers to call. There were seven cats affected with it that we know of.”
The Maricopa Health Department, the Yavapai Health Department, the Northern Arizona University plague lab, the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service and the Centers for Disease Control descended on Jerome and found two different areas where rats were infected with bubonic plague.
“We had to close down the clinic or wear protective gear,” Kennaway said. “We had all been exposed, my technicians and myself, to bubonic plague at this point. So we had to go on medicine for that as did the animals. Fortunately, no one came down with the plague because we hit it hard and fast. Although it was quite a shock to everybody to find out that we had a deadly disease in our midst.”
Woofstock has been taking place since 2015, beginning with an idea from Tommy “Rocks” Anderson, who is also the creator of the Jerome Ukulele Orchestra.
“[He] has always been a part of our celebrations and our fundraisers,” Kennaway said.”He supports the clinic immensely. We have several other fundraisers during the year. But Woofstock has always been fun.”
The Jerome Humane Society is still seeking donations from local artisans or other interested parties for the silent auction; those interested can drop items off at Nellie Bly Kaleidoscopes.
