Soap Lake celebrates Smokiam Days

Contestants in the bed races negotiate the corner in downtown Soap Lake.

Miss Warden waved, and these children waved back during the Smokiam Days parade Saturday.

by Herald Staff Writer & CHERYL SCHWEIZER
| July 10, 2012 6:05 AM

Miss Warden waved, and these children waved back during the Smokiam Days parade Saturday.

SOAP LAKE - Residents and friends of the town celebrated Smokiam Days with a parade, salmon feed, bed races, horseshoe tournament and a fireworks show.

American Legion Post No. 28 from Ephrata led the parade down Main Street, including the two oldest poppy girls on record - at least that post members know of. The post's poppy girl was out of town during the weekend and her grandma and another post member, Margie Konshuk and Jan Bro, filled in for them.

Civil Air Patrol cadets, Legion members and volunteers carried posters of armed services personnel from Washington who have died in the line of duty. They, their families and their sacrifices were the subject of a short ceremony, complete with a 21-gun salute.

The parade route took participants all the way from Soap Lake High School to East Beach Park, and in a great loop back to the high school. The Royal City royalty stayed in there, performing their dance moves all the way back to the high school.

Mackenzie Stinson, 4, of Seattle, was intrigued by the whole idea of the bed races, especially after her mom explained them. "They get beds, they put wheels on them, they get people to sit on them, they push them (the beds) down the street and try to win," Mom said.

Mackenzie wanted to see those beds, and she was willing to stand on the sidewalk in 90-plus heat for quite a while, but in the end Grandma's swimming pool sounded more inviting. But eventually three beds did make it down Main Street, although a mixup in the instructions had the guys pushing two beds mistaking the finish line.

Winifred Forest really tried to get around that corner and to the finish line, but the bed - a frame resting on a pallet with wheels - just didn't have it. The pallet broke, the mattress flopped and Forest's friends abandoned him, leaving him to pull the wreckage around the corner alone. "I'm tired," he said. He's going to build his own bed next year, he said.

Smokiam Days continued in the shade of the park, with the salmon fed and horseshoe tournament. The fireworks drew most of the town back to the beach at dusk.