Sep. 9—The Juliaetta Blackberry Festival and Car Show will take over Centennial Community Park today for a celebration of community bonding and fun.
Now in its 22nd year, the event will include dachshund races, food, vendors and a healthy number of classic cars, motorcycles and other vehicles.
Kathy Groseclose, the former secretary of the Juliaetta Community Improvement Association, said the festival is a celebration of the community and has grown into a big event for everyone.
"The whole community gets involved," Groseclose said.
The first festival was in 2001 and boasted of two cars. It has grown over the years and now includes tractors, pickups, cars and motorcycles set up in the park for the day. The Community Improvement Association will also have their annual booths of pies, jams and other blackberry flavored treats.
Groseclose said the association wants to focus on local businesses and booths each year to celebrate the community.
Registration for the dachshund race starts at 10 a.m. and the races start at 10:30 a.m. in the smaller softball field of the park.
Groseclose said they hold the race and a cornhole tournament in the smaller field because it is fully fenced and the dogs are unleashed for the race.
The festival starts at 6:30 a.m. with breakfast from the Kendrick FFA. A barbecue lunch of hamburgers, chips and baked beans is provided by the Juliaetta Volunteer Fire Department. Breakfast and lunch will cost $10 each. Other food vendors will be available.
Live music will be provided from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. by Mark Makand and raffle prizes will be announced throughout the day. Trophies for the car show will be announced at 3 p.m.
The festival's "antiques" this year are Ed Groseclose and Mason Baldwin. Antiques, Kathy Groseclose said, are community members who the association wanted to honor for their contributions to Juliaetta.
"He (Ed) has been an integral part of the Juliaetta community," Kathy Groseclose said. "We wanted to recognize him for that."
Kathy Groseclose said Ed ran the junkyard in Juliaetta and has lived in the area his whole life. It was Ed who brought Baldwin to his first festival and Baldwin hasn't missed one since.
"It's just really fun," Kathy Groseclose said. "I really like honoring the people in the community — they deserve recognition."
The festival is also a fundraiser for the Juliaetta Community Center which has been used for weddings, funerals, baby showers, retirement parties and is also a hospitality center in an emergency. The center is the former Old Lutheran Church in Juliaetta.