Royal City Summerfest seeking more volunteers

Royal City royalty ride the Royal City float during Summerfest in 2007. Photo by Bill Stevenson/Columbia Basin Herald

by Matthew Weaver<br>Herald Senior Staff Writer
| May 21, 2008 9:00 PM

Meeting takes place Thursday

ROYAL CITY - Coordinators of an annual Royal City summer event are looking to firm up plans with a meeting Thursday evening.

"It's our regular monthly meeting we have on the fourth Thursday," explained Royal City Summerfest Co-Chair Leslie Fanning. "Just to coordinate the activities we're having in July. We're having a pretty big festival, and it takes a lot of coordination to do it."

The meeting takes place Thursday from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., in the office of the apartment complex Jardine de Rosas, located at 425 Juniper Circle.

The Royal City Summerfest, scheduled this year for July 11 through July 13, always takes place during the second weekend in July, Fanning explained.

"It began a long time ago, but I think this is our fourth year of Summerfest," she said. "We changed the name, it used to be Royal City Community Days, and it was changed to Summerfest about four years ago."

The coordinators are looking for donations and volunteers.

"We actually have a goodly amount," Fanning said. "It takes a lot of people to put on a festival like this and all of our main positions are filled. But many hands make light work. We still have jobs that can be done either before or that day."

The July event includes dancing horses, karaoke contest, car show, parade, races, motocross demonstration, truck pull, three-on-three basketball tournament, three-on-three soccer tournament and fun run themed "The Run for President 2008."

"Tyler Frank is in charge of that and I might mention he's hoping to have 100 pre-registrations by June 1," Fanning said. "Because if we can then we can get Runner's World to help sponsor the run."

Vendors in the park are still being sought.

Summerfest has been "very successful" in the last few years, Fanning said, with events drawing 2,000 to 3,000 spectators.

"We'd like to have a really good parade this year, we really would like a good participation," she said. "We're reaching out to the other communities to come and spend the day with us."

An events schedule will be posted on the new Summerfest Web site, www.rcsummerfest.org.

Fanning said the goal for Thursday's meeting is to finalize budgets and get reports on what coordinators are working on.

"We're hoping our donations are coming in so that we're firm on knowing how much money we have to work with," Fanning said. "So that if we have some extra money, we can get some extra events going. We'd like to do more water events because it's so hot. "

For more information, call Fanning at 509-346-9298.