Ephrata organizers plan Sage-n-Sun parade
Motorcycles roar through Ephrata at a past Sage n Sun parade.
File photo
EPHRATA — While organizers of the annual Sage-n-Sun festival here won’t stage a concert this year, they are planning a parade for early June.
“We’re filling out the city permits for the Sage-n-Sun parade only and for the car show,” said Rita Witte, the director and president of the Ephrata Chamber of Commerce. “We’re putting together just the parade and seeing if our merchants want to do a sidewalk sale and vending outside, but it’s not in stone yet.”
“We’d really like to do a parade,” Witte added. “We need it. We need it for everybody.”
Normally, Sage-n-Sun is a two-day festival around the second weekend of June, featuring a parade, car show, street food and live music.
Witte said organizers this year didn’t have time to put a concert together and did not want to plan an event that might end up canceled. She also said the car show, renamed the Ephrata Chamber of Commerce Car Show and Shine, is planned for July 17.
It is only one of several events this year for which the Ephrata City Council approved event applications at an April 7 meeting.
While the council does not have the Sage-n-Sun permit yet, council members approved permits for the Lions Club’s annual Youth Fish Derby on April 17, and the Ephrata School District’s bike rodeo on April 27 and 29.
According to Mayor Bruce Reim, the plan right now is to proceed as normally as possible.
“I don’t know if we have all the permits, but they are planned to be up and running,” he said.
Private events like parades require city permits if organizers ask for the temporary closure of city streets — such as Basin Street for the Sage-n-Sun parade — or to use city resources, Reim said.
In a year that has seen nearly all public events, such as festivals and parades canceled, Witte said it was important to have something to show a world locked down and grounded by the COVID-19 virus was getting back to normal.
“We’re just trying to put something out there for everybody so they can have something, to get out there and enjoy things a bit,” she said.
Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.