It was a weekend full of making memories in the Town of Eatonia.
The West Central community was finally able to celebrate their 100 year anniversary beginning last Thursday night with a movie at the park, and then they finished things off late Sunday afternoon with a farewell barbecue at the Heritage Park.
One of the biggest attractions of the weekend in Global FMX also helped close out the show on Sunday.
Stunt group Global FMX performed several shows for the eager weekend crowd, setting up on Main Street of all places as they were unable to set up in their original spot south of the football field (Photo by Cooper Douglas)Some more amazing photos from the stunt show are available on the Eatonia Centennial Facebook page, as West Central Online talked to one of the organizing members Maryanne Becker about a variety of different things from the weekend. Becker was blown away by the show the bikes were able to put on.
"They did six shows for us, and that was absolutely crazy," she said about the up-close experience for fans on Main Street, "It was supposed to be along the highway in a grassy area, but of course we got that rain so they actually set up on Main Street, which was just awesome."
The rain mentioned by Becker almost put a major halt on the group's plans. Thankfully though they received a great assist from the Town of Kindersley in the form of a street sweeper pass around town that helped tremendously alongside the efforts of yet another 'work bee' organized by members of the committee. The overall planning has been years in the making, and the work physically cleaning up the community for the July 1st weekend began several weeks ago.
"We kind of started near the end of May. Once a week we had work bees, sometimes twice a week," started Becker on all of the different committees directly involved.
They cleaned up local parks along with spraying weeds and laying some sod in an attempt to spruce up the town, only for it all to be ruined by a Wednesday night hail storm that seemingly only hit Eatonia.
Thankfully enough, completing another beautification effort wasn't a big deal for the locals working hard to make sure they finally celebrate a century.
"Thursday morning we had an emergency work bee. We had probably 40 people come out."
Becker says they had everything cleaned up again by the noon hour, and that despite it being a lot of extra work, things went pretty smoothly.
Debris like this was noticeable all over town following the Wednesday storm (Photo via Eatonia Centennial 2020 on Facebook)Aside from that storm the weather stayed good all weekend. Unless you ask the senior baseball teams in attendance for their Friday night exhibition. That full story complete with pictures is available below, as the heavy skies returned to make for a memorable night in front of a big crowd.
"The baseball game was awesome, and then we were able to have our fireworks when it got dark enough and that was a lot of fun."
Before the main festivities, Becker was involved with some other tasks to get the community ready.
Some fun was had through the idea of "swag bags" for pre-registered attendees as they received weekend materials ahead of time, and then through a town wide beautification contest, nearly everybody in the community came together whether it was trimming up the front lawn, or going above and beyond to make their Eatonia home stick out.
The guest judges from Eatonia Oasis Living were eager to help out with the contest, as they know a thing or two about how the community has looked over the years.
"I think they did a great job," shared Becker who said the committee did their best to get the whole community involved, "They took it very seriously, and they asked if we had any other contests that they would like to be involved in."
Local seniors didn't only play a big part in helping judge the town-wide beautification contest, they also tagged along as part of the parade (Photo by Cooper Douglas)The selfless work done by residents to help the Eatonia Centennial team out was greatly appreciated by Becker and the rest of the crew as they watched their years of planning finally come to fruition. The only major thing that changed due to the event's multiple postponements was the live entertainment coming in as headliners. The Steve McQueen band had about 500 people rocking out on Saturday night, coming out after the stage was set by locals Mitch Larock and the 4:54 Band. Becker says the way the crowd was they could have gone for another two hours.
Even despite all of this, and the fun had at the Saturday night cabaret, the characteristic of togetherness is still what stuck out for Becker over the weekend.
"In general I just love seeing smiles on people's faces. Like how packed was our Main Street on Saturday? Just the amount of people that made the effort to come up and talk to us and just say how much they appreciated it. That was really cool."
Eatonia Centennial organizers weren't the only ones receiving the love, as it was more than spread out on Saturday with events going on town-wide all day long following the parade. People lined Main Street as one particular portion of the road was taken up by classic cars, some being older than the Town of Eatonia itself.
The 1918 Model T was driven by Steve Stusrud, and was the oldest car in the parade along with being an original Eatonia car, originally owned by John MacGregor, one of Eatonias first settlers that built the Dr Lord's Teahouse and many of the historical buildings in the area. The car was restored in one year to be ready for the parade (Photos/Information via Kirsten Theaker)The 1918 Model T was accompanied in the parade and following car show by another car in a 1920 Studebaker, and also another gem of a ride in longtime Eatonia resident Ted Douglas's 1931 Model A. The car won a first place prize and was a hit at the show all day long, though Douglas was more enthused with showing off his grandkids to the passersby.
Eatonia legend Ted Douglas in the passenger seat with his son Chris as the chauffer, and grandson Jett riding along in the back in the cars premium 1931 feature of a rumble seat (Photo by Cooper Douglas)That family spirit is something that was apparent all over the place according to Becker, an aspect she likely won't forget from this weekend.
"You know, sometimes three generations of the same family were walking around and enjoying it."
Sunday morning was another gorgeous one in Eatonia, as locals held a service at the park following a pancake breakfast at the Eatonia Memorial Arena (Photo via Eatonia Centennial 2020 on Facebook)Sunday's church service at the Heritage Park helped close things down ahead of the farewell barbecue sending locals on their way, as organizers couldn't have planned a better weekend to celebrate their centennial, and attendees did what they could to soak in all of the sun and fun they could.
Wrapping up their Centennial + 2, Eatonia now has a head start on their next 100 year party.
Thu, Apr 25, 9:30 AM
