Fairgorunds gets in on Fourth fun

It's not unusual to see a person knocked off a bull at the Sanders County Fairgrounds, but it was a bit unique that it wasn't fair time - it was last Thursday.

The fairgrounds were filled with visitors for the first Freedom Festival as part of the Independence Day celebration and a mechanical bull was one of the main attractions with dozens of people demonstrating their cowboy courage. The special Fourth of July event also had 25 vendors, a bouncy house, corn hole contests, clowns, and for the first time in four years an array of fireworks that evening.

Fair Manager Kristy Sheehan said the event was a big success and plans to have it again next year. "The number of people varied all throughout the day, but I would guess that we had a total of 1,000 to 1,500 people if you put them all together there at once," said Sheehan, who took over as manager in January. Her assistant, Rachel Largent, also helped with the event throughout the day.

Nearly the entire Butler family of Plains tested their skill on the mechanical bull. The father, Richard, had competed on a real bull in his younger days. Colten, 15, lasted only seven seconds and Lane, 13, went about 20 seconds, but Utah, 14, went for nearly 40 seconds, the longest of the group.

The most clowning around at the festival came from the booth of Preston and Alicia Wentz of Trout Creek from their clown business, Barnyard Entertainment. Dressed in an array of colors from head to toe, "Barnie Yard" and his clown wife "Kurly Sweeet" made animal balloons for kids and periodically walked around to meet people.

Kids had the chance to get painted faces, and Mary Halling of Plains gave away American flags and bottled water, the Plains Bible Chapel sponsored a bouncy house for children, the Plains Woman's Club had games available, and Raf Viniard of Plains made his debut of the Clark Fork River Radio Station at the festival.

The Shining Diamond Stables of St. Ignatius planned to have pony rides at the festival, but couldn't make it. In addition, a parade was planned in Plains, but organizers could not get the necessary permit in time, said Sheehan. The event included a live band that performed up to around 10:30 p.m., when the festival fireworks began.

For the first time in four years the fairgrounds had their own fireworks show on Independence Day. Anthony Young, chief of the Plains Volunteer Fire Department, led the operation with four of his firefighters: Curt Alexander, Matt Fields, Greg Ericksen, and K.C. Watts. It was the first time for Young, but he said it went smooth and he'd do it again if asked.

Sheehan said the fairgrounds fireworks show blended in nicely with the ones people were shooting from the beach. Young's show lasted only about 15 minutes, but the beach fireworks went past midnight. Young said they fired 30 boxes of mortars. "It was a nice smooth night, it was just awesome. We had a front row seat for the best show in the house," said Young, who had a wildland fire truck at the site as a precaution. Plains-Paradise Rural Fire District also had a crew at the site, along with fire crews at Paradise and at Quinn's Hot Springs Resort for their fireworks shows.

"I thought that it went better than expected for our first year of having something," said Sheehan, who said she and Largent wanted to have a special Fourth of July event.

Sheehan felt the Freedom Festival was a big success and she plans to have something each year. "We are not sure if it will be exactly like this event. We might try to mix it up on what we do each year, but for sure we will have an event every year," said Sheehan. She hopes to have more vendors and different types of music.