Plains Day hits town

PLAINS – The usually quiet town of Plains transformed for a day on Saturday, June 7 as the annual Plains Day celebration took place. The main street of downtown was packed with people enjoying the day and the activities.

The day kicked off as usual with the Mason’s Breakfast at the VFW from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. The VFW was packed with hungry breakfast-goers and provided a meal for everyone to feast on. For the four-mile run/walk, a crowd swarmed the beach at the Sanders County Fairgrounds, registering for the event. Overall, approximately 60 participants took to the marked path, many finishing up within the hour.

Vendors and food booths filled the greenway, while a barbecue vendor also positioned itself at the fairgrounds to target everyone at the Super Sort horse event.

The parade started promptly at noon with the color guard leading the band of participants. Local businesses and organizations took part in the event, handing out candy and prizes to those on the sidelines. Water bottles, tote bags and Frisbees were dished out to the kids all eagerly awaiting their treats.

The turtle races saw a large amount of participants with 57 in all. There were six heats of races, the winner of each was entered into a final race where a first, second and third place winner was announced. In all, Bridger Bauer, Jaycee Carr, the Brady Bunch, Hannah Heward, Briauna Kulawinski and Haylee Steinebech were crowned victors at least once.

In the final race, Kulawinski’s turtle was able to edge out the competition, taking first place, followed by Heward’s turtle and then Bauer’s turtle in third place.

The car/motorcycle show saw a large amount of participants as cars lined the greenway in Plains and also participated in the parade, adding a variety of classic and refurbished cars to the mix of floats.

The family games scheduled to take place at the Fred Young Park were canceled, however the VFW was on hand grilling treats for anyone who came to the park.

VFW Post 3596 and the VFW Auxiliary were on hand in Fred Young Park, grilling up snacks as they have done for many Plains Days in the past.

One member of the Auxiliary Meralise Nass, noted they had a good day in the park.

“It was a good event today and I think we did well,” Nass said.

The fairgrounds was packed for the Super Sort horse competition, a two day event that was new to Plains Day. Patti Waldoch had been preparing for the event since November. Competitive riders came to participate on Saturday, where the entrance fee was a whopping $200. The event paid out 75 percent of those fees, and also awarded a saddle to the winner.

Sunday catered more towards the locals, allowing those interested to take part in the sport without sacrificing hundreds of dollars. The clinics were full of eager people, many who had already taken a clinic offered by Waldoch.

The Sanders County Dog Training Club took over the lawn of the old Wildhorse Elementary School, setting up camp and showing off their skills to anyone who stopped by.

Not only were club members on hand to walk their dogs through the agility courses, but anyone who was interested was able to take their pet through the course, testing the waters of the sport for themselves.

“We had some good interest in what we are doing down here,” organizer Jan Manning said.

The club aimed at letting people know they had countywide training resources and a variety of different training programs. On top of that, the club participates in community service by offering safety presentations at the local schools on how to behave around dogs. This spring they held three presentations. The club also has a campaign called Get Them Home and offers collars and identification tags to anyone who needs them. Anyone interested in more information is encouraged to contact Char Anderson, president of the club at 847-8730.

At 4 p.m. there was a break in events as everyone prepared for the party that was about to take place at El Johnson Memorial Pool Park.

As afternoon turned to evening, music could be heard blaring from El Johnson Memorial Pool Park as the dance got under way.

The party started with a short concert by Aaron Broxterman, who played a few songs on the acoustic guitar before heading off to the music equipment, to take up his role as the evening’s disc jockey.

Once Broxterman got the music going it was not long before the dance floor was packed.

The dance started with a Virginia reel, where a couple of accomplished dancers lead the rest of the group through the motions of the traditional group dance to an accompaniment of smiles and laughs.

The reel was followed up by another group dance, the heel toe Polka, where dancers switched partners and rotated in and out of a large circle to the music.

Once these dances concluded the crowd broke up a bit but was soon back at full force following a few salsa dances and a limbo round.

With daylight slowly slipping away, preparations were made for the final entertainment, the drive in movie.

Across the green from the dance floor, Ken Saner had positioned his Ford Galaxie to serve as the stand for the movie projector, shining onto a screen set up in the pool park for the event.

Saner joked about how long they had to wait to show the movie with the long daylight hours of early summer.

“It’s tough because you have to wait for it to get dark,” Saner said.

Saner added the movie usually starts when there is a little daylight so people can go home at a somewhat reasonable hour.

This year’s movie was Snowball Express a 1970s comedy about a hotel in Colorado and one man’s attempts to run it.

As the movie flickered across the screen, another Plains Day came to an end in the same fashion as last year. Once the movie ended, the park emptied as people ended their busy event-filled day.