Huckleberry Festival brings fun, food

Danielle Switalski

“They can’t take that away from me,” were lyrics heard coming from the stage as the Swing Street Band played a practice melody before the Huckleberry Festival Parade Awards presentation. 

More fittingly would be “the rain can’t take that away from me.”  Friday night’s downpour definitely did not stop fest goers from coming out Saturday and enjoying a full day of events at the 30th annual Huckleberry Festival in Trout Creek.

Although the rain blew in Friday night, the Miss Huckleberry Pageant and the Karaoke Sing-Along still went on as planned.

Saturday’s events kicked off bright and early with a pancake breakfast benefiting the fire hall and a 5K Run for Fun.  Following the run was the Huckleberry parade themed ‘Huckleberry Jammin’ featuring a wide variety of sights and sounds ranging from bagpipers, to a merry-go-round float, old style cars and even a motorized bathtub.

“The neatest thing about the parade is that it’s noncommercialized.  Some of the things are just hilarious, just whatever the people feel like,” said Trout Creek resident and parade attendee Lari McSwain.

It definitely was a year for humor at the parade.  The “Butz Sisters,” four women dressed to the nines in head to toe glamour including wigs, bright red lipstick and feathery boas, took home the parade award for Most Humorous. 

This marked the “Butz Sisters’” fourth year in the parade and also their fourth trophy for Most Humorous.

“We didn’t know we would win the award, we were wishing and hoping though,” said the giggling ‘Itsy Bitsy Butz.’  “See we know the award says most humorous, but they can’t spell, it’s supposed to say most glamorous.”

First and second place trophies were given out to parade members in 11 different categories ranging from the Best Float to the Best Pooper Scooper Award.  

The turnout for the parade was large, as Festival Chair Liz Citrino said, it is usually the most successful event of the festival. 

The crowd did not just come out for the parade, however.  Rows and rows of little shops lined the fest grounds with not one empty picnic table or booth in sight.  Set up at the end of the festival grounds lay the main stage where crowds gathered in the bleachers for the Parade Awards presentation to be followed by the Swing Street Band performance and the Albeni Falls Pipe and Drum Group later in the afternoon.

“We have a lot of people come in from out of town and it’s just neat to see the different things and the different people,” said McSwain.  “It just brings everybody together.”

Sunday also kicked off with a pancake breakfast followed by the day’s main events including the Huckleberry Hounds Agility Club’s Dog Agility Demonstration, a Dessert Contest and the sweet tunes of the Valley Strings.

“We had a surprisingly good turnout in general this year despite the bad weather,” said Citrino.  “We had good turnouts for the dessert and jam and jelly contests, with the auction also doing really well this year.”

Since the festival is nonprofit, the proceeds of the auction go to supporting the cost of the festival, however, any extra proceeds are set aside for the community in order to meet the community’s needs with things such as park maintenance and the up-keep local facilities. 

Festival-goers had a new treat this year with the first ever Huckleberry Homesteader Pentathlon which took place both Saturday and Sunday afternoon.  The Pentathlon features five different tasks competitors have to complete in order to test their abilities as homesteaders.  Tasks include driving nails into a log, casting into targets, filling a bucket using an old-fashioned water pump, target shooting and sawing off a piece of log.  Anyone could enter at the festival into three different groups, senior men, senior women and juniors.  Competitors are judged by time and accuracy, combining points at the end of the tasks to see who has the best score.

Citrino said the Pentathlon was “great fun” and very successful.  She said there was so much interest that they will most likely do it again next year adding even more groups to the event, including a kid’s group.

“I would just like to express my appreciation, not only to all the visitors, but to all the volunteers who put in a ton of hours to make this festival possible.”