‘Biggest littlest parade’
Local residents make their way down the five-block parade route at last year’s Hartline Community Days. The parade is an informal one, organizers said, and people can join in as they like. This year’s event is Saturday.
COURTESY PHOTO/LYNN FRANKLIN
HARTLINE — One of Grant County’s smallest communities will turn out Saturday for Hartline Community Days.
This is the 43rd year Hartline has had the celebration, said Ron Thomas, one of the event’s organizers.
“It started out being a harvest celebration years ago,” Thomas said, “and then we moved it and just called it Hartline Community Days, even though it’s only one day.”
The day starts at 8 a.m. with the Hartline Days Fun Run, a run of about 2 miles that starts at the Hartline Historic School. Between 9:30 and 10 a.m. folks will gather at the school again for the parade, which starts at 10:30. It’s a short parade, ending up about five blocks away at the town park.
“We probably have the biggest smallest parade in the county,” Thomas said. “The kids, sometimes they're riding their bicycles or four-wheelers, or they're walking a 4-H lamb or dog, things like that. Very informal. A couple of fire trucks, (and) we usually get the VFW color guard from Odessa. They're supposed to be here again this year for us. And we have a very small Boy Scout troop.”
Grand marshals this year are Russ and Julie Dingman, Thomas said, who have contributed a great deal to the community. There’s an honorary grand marshal as well, he added, longtime town clerk Tina Thomas.
Over at the park there will be entertainment, food and vendors.
“We have the cheerleaders selling pop and water and running the dunk tank,” Thomas said. We have kids’ games right at noon, and we’ll have some other entertainment too.”
At noon, there’s a community lunch, which this year features smoked brisket, Thomas said.
The high point of the day is the auction at 1:30 p.m. The money goes to scholarships for students at Almira/Coulee-Hartline High School, said Lynn Franklin, another of the organizers.
“At last year’s auction we raised a little over $4,500,” Franklin said. “And we had money left over from the year before, so we actually awarded $5,100 in scholarships.”
The auction items are donated by businesses and individuals mostly in the communities of Almira, Hartline, Coulee City and Wilbur, Franklin said. Items are pretty eclectic, including a 42-inch TV, a hanging basket lounge chair and an assortment of gift cards, Franklin said. A dentist contributed a gift basket that included sonic toothbrushes, Coulee City artist Don Nutt generally contributes some art and there’s a child’s pedal tractor that’s valued at about $600.
Not all the auction items have been submitted yet, Franklin added, so she couldn’t say what the final slate would look like.
After the auction, there will be beanbag toss and pickleball competitions, Thomas said.
The turnout varies, because after all, Hartline is an agricultural town, Thomas said.
“Some (years are) better than others,” he said. “It depends on farming, who's still harvesting and who might be seeding, but that stuff’s winding down.”