Crawdad’s, crawdad’s everywhere

Event report and photos
by Rod Schilling

A large crowd, comprised of mostly Lakeside residents, showed up for Friday’s opening day festivities of Lakeside’s First Annual Crawdad Festival.

The event was kicked off at 6:00 P.M. with the opening ceremony leading to a Cajun Cook-off and judging at 6:30.

The cook-off was won by two gentlemen from Coos Bay, Jim Ring and Dave Taylor whose rendition of shrimp étouffée was a sure hit with the judges.

Second place was awarded to Lakeside’s own Zolton Vass for his crawdad bar-b-que.

Third place, and the peoples’ choice award,  went to one of the hardest working volunteers at this festival, Mattie Lane for her sweet potato pecan pie.

Various awards were also presented by the festivals Master of Ceremonies Joe Pepper, and Lakeside’s Mayor Orville Nelson for the volunteerism and hard work that went into making this first annual event the success that it’s shaping up to be.

There were crowds at most of the vendor tents up and down Park Street. People lined up in both the Budweiser and winery tents.

Kids and adults alike danced and listened to the rock and roll tunes of the Charley Freak Blues Band, who played into the chilly evening.

All this was making this a  first day of what promised to be a fun weekend.

Saturday

Saturday, a sunny sky, and warmer temperatures brought throngs of people from far and near to enjoy Lakeside’s Crawdad Festival. On Park Street, people were shoulder to shoulder, supporting vendors selling everything from rocks to oysters.

The crowd was so enthusiastic in their support of the event that food vendors were making multiple trips to “re-stock” their wares throughout the day.

At a prize basket (crawdad trap) containing lots of fun stuff–and from the number of tickets in the drum–it looked to have had hundreds of entrants.

crawdad-trap full of goodies

Next on line was the celebrity crawdad eating contest. A regular who’s who of Lakeside celebrities sat down to answer the question once and for all, who is the crawdad eating King or Queen?

Yum Yum

Officer Moore-Nadine Goodrich-Mike Mader-Diane O'Bryan

A pound of crawdads was measured out for each contestant and the eating began. The first one to finish was Lakeside’s contract Deputy Scott Moore.

He was closely followed by second place Master Gardener Diane O’Bryan, and third place belonged to Lakeside’s Fire Chief Ted Ross.

After the competition, the Cajun Boil was kicked off and continued throughout the day until 750 of the 800 pounds of crawdads ordered were sold.

Also included in the festivities were many events and vendors set up for the kids fun. A crawdad race was run, turns on several rides were enjoyed, and fun booths made this truly a family affair.

Saturday’s music included the sound of blues music by Big Foot and some great classic rock played by the band Ambush. Lots of folks stayed late into the evening partaking of food and drink, and enjoying the entertainment provided.

Sunday kicked off early with a Mother’s Day pancake breakfast at the Lions Club. Mothers ate free and a great turnout ensued.

Sunday

Sunday’s music was to theme with zydeco tunes provided by the band Étouffée. More food and drink were consumed.

A treasure run sent contestants throughout the city to procure tickets from ten separate participating businesses. The prizes included a 32-inch flat screen high definition TV donated by Oregon Satellite. Other prizes were two small drink refrigerators donated by Budweiser.

There were a lot of other stories generated at this event, and I will endeavor in the coming days to present some of these.

If you missed the First Annual Crawdad Festival you really missed something, but fret not, the Second Annual is only eleven months plus three weekends away!