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 Jacob Sterling, 19, left, and Larry Copeland, 20, of Delphos Tent & Awning, Inc. use a stake driver Wednesday morning to set up a tent for the St. Joseph Fourth of July Festival at the Auglaize County Fairgrounds. The festival begins Friday afternoon and culminates with the community fireworks show on Saturday night. Staff photo/Tessa Bargainnier By MATT NICHOLS
Staff Writer
For Cindy Walkup, the atmosphere surrounding the St. Joseph Fourth of July Festival hasn’t changed since she was a child.
Now the Catholic church’s administrative assistant, Walkup said the event still draws the same emotions every year when she sets foot in the Auglaize County Fairgrounds.
“Things have gotten bigger and better, but the feeling, the camaraderie and that sense of homecoming that I had when I was young, I still get,” Walkup said. “It’s something that always brings people back to town.”
On Friday and Saturday, residents from across the area will converge on the fairgrounds for the festival’s 59th year, enjoying games, prizes and the standard at any reputable July 4th event — the fireworks.
“The fireworks here are some of the best,” Walkup said, “and that’s because of the generosity of the businesses around here.”
Dozens of area businesses have donated funds to the firework show with Time Warner Cable, G.A. Wintzer & Son, Ross McCain and Poppe Law Office listed as the primary sponsors.
The two-day event is packed with games and prizes, with the crowd-favorite Grand Sizzler drawing beginning at 1 p.m. Saturday. For eight hours, 50 prizes are to be awarded, all totaling more than $50,000. The final grand prize is to be $10,000 in cash. The prize valued at the least is $250 in cash.
Included in the Grand Sizzler prizes are $500 in cash, a package for two to the August Bristol NASCAR Sprint Cup race, Vizio 37-inch and 46-inch LCD TVs, a Nintendo Wii and a touch screen desktop computer among others.
One Grand Sizzler ticket costs $50, with purchasers able to win more than one prize. Tickets go on sale at 3:30 p.m. Friday.
The festivities begin at 3:30 p.m. Friday at the fairgrounds with barbecue pork chop dinners. A raffle and a tractor and truck pull are scheduled to follow at 6 p.m. Bingo is to begin at 7 p.m. and DJ Bill Brading plans to start his performance at 8 p.m. in the beer garden.
The lunch stand opens at 11 a.m. Saturday and from noon to 4 p.m. unlimited rides are to be offered at $12 per person. Bingo, lucky pull, cake wheels, 50-50, novelty stand and kids games all begin at 1 p.m. Saturday. An attendance prize of $59 also will be given every 59 minutes.
The Auglaize County Fire Chiefs’ Poker Run returns to the festival for the sixth year. Registration begins at 1 p.m. Saturday, with a fee of $12 per person or $20 per couple.
The evening closes with the Tree Top Flyers performance at the beer garden at 5 p.m., Big Worm and the Spazmatics at 8 p.m. and the community fireworks display slated for 10:30 p.m. Saturday.
Walkup said in recent years, the event has grown quite a bit, noting the efforts of the festival’s steering committee. Steering committee member Mike Wurst said he and other members are never short on ideas for the following year’s festival.
“As we keep growing, people keep coming up to us saying we need to do this or do that,’ Wurst said. “So it hasn’t been tough. People always have new things to offer us.”
Wurst said the money raised during the fundraiser is turned over to the church where it goes into the general fund. The most money the festival raised was two years ago, when the festival turned over $95,000. The weather forecast looks promising, but Wurst isn’t sure sunny skies are enough to set a new record.
“With the economy, we think a lot are going to stay home, so we’re not sure,” Wurst said. “We always try to have enough stuff here for the kids to do at the lowest price.
“This is free entertainment for the family,” he said. “This event is two-fold. It’s an event that is family oriented, and it’s one that is patriotic.”
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