Lakeside, a working community
Lakeside has just put on the Second Annual Lakeside Crawdad Festival. And it was tremendously successful! We ran out of crawdads, AGAIN.
The Lakeside Crawdad Festival is the brainchild of Joe Pepper of the 8th Street Grill who thought of it and promoted it last year. I was the organizer. Promoting and organizing means NOTHING without people to do the work. The volunteers in Lakeside are the ones who got together working side by side for their community.
I’d like to especially thank some key people. Namely, Melanie Schwartz, former art instructor at SWOCC, who took some really beat up signs from last year and created all the wonderful signs for this year’s festival. Wow – exceeded all expectations.
Justin Macduff, who created all the art work for the festival (the banners and flags, the logos, designed the T-Shirts) and created and ran the website (Lakesidecrawdadfestival.com) for FREE.
Sheli Rowe, who created and sewed the terrific crawdad costume for the festival and turns out to be the BEST vendor coordinator ever!! Peg Boots who handled all the media coverage and coordinated the Lakeside TV commercials. A very very talented lady we were lucky to have.
Robbie Robison who contributed his ATV and trailer to help with trash disposal. Dan Conway of Lakeside Towing and Repair who donated his time and equipment to get the ATV and trailer to the park as well as running the Car Crash. Eline Powell and Shirley Janssen who ran the raffle and raised $1,181 for the Chamber of Commerce.
A very special thanks to Brian Walter, Park Ranger, who helped to handle all the park emergencies (like – oops out of T-paper in the restrooms, oops – need more garbage cans). A really really nice guy to work with. And to Dennis Langley, City of Lakeside Public Works Director, who helped improve Park Avenue.
I’d like to list the people who helped at the festival and acknowledge their help
General Setup Vendor Checkin: Gloria Economou, Janne LaValle (did everything, and was everywhere), Melanie Schwartz, Rudy Sherych, Diane O’Brian, (also was everywhere), Rod Schilling,Sheli Rowe, Mike Armstrong, Phyllis Deaver, Rod Johnson
Gate Duty: Gloria Economou, Larry DeMeurichy, Brandi Lewis, Ben Lee, Diane Biggs, Allen Freitas, Elaine Armstrong, Karen Eubanks, Neil Ornstein, Nadine Goodrich, Gloria Vanda, Judy Reininger, Jan Orman,Joe Orman, Sue Allen, Mike Armstrong, Marcella Bossard, Kathy McChesney, Sallie Tullos, Teri Macduff, Rod Johnson, Mary Schilling, Jodi Miller
Crawdad Cooking: Chrysta Swift, Charlie Hill, Mary Schilling, Dina Gamez, Shirley Janssen, Melanie Schwartz, Rod Schilling, Kathleen McFeron, Beckie Sanders, Kevin and Kathy Stufflebean, Pat DeMeurich
Nikki Whitty, Beverly Sowers, Diane Biggs, Elaine Armstrong, Gloria Vanda, Susanne Koss, Jenny Warmington, Roger Koss , Sally Tullor
Trash Pickup: Mack Eubanks, Michael Reiss, Terri Falcone, Mike Mader, Alex Reiss, Rod Schilling
YES – I know I’ve listed people several time. That’s because there were people who just said “put me where you need me” and they were constantly working. Some other people who worked wherever they were needed were Gordon Tullos, Joan Anderson, Jonni Reeder, Cathy, Heather and John Reiss.
If I have forgotten anyone, my apologies in advance. I also need to mention all the people who worked at the non-profit groups with booths at the fair, like Chief Ted Ross and all the Fire Department people, Lona Owns from the Lakeside Lion’s, Karen Ogden from the Senior’s group, the Boy Scouts, Sea Scouts, Girl Scouts, Relay for Life, Denise and Bob Chaves from the American Legion, Diane O’Bryan and Peg Boots from the Park Advisory Board. A special thank you to Bill Usrey, Sandy Thayer and Herman Fanger from the North County Citizens Patrol who provided security for the event. They did a great job, couldn’t have asked for better help!
For me, what’s really gratifying is that all these people came together to do something for OUR community. The Chamber of Commerce sponsors this event and money raised is used on community projects AND to put on next year’s event so we can raise more money, etc, etc, etc. Small steps can lead to bigger and bigger things.
When I was interviewing the vendors on the last day asking how things went, a consistent and common theme mentioned was “how pleasant it was do deal with all the volunteers who were so nice and helpful”. Way to go!!!
It’s terrific to live in a community where people band together to do something good for their town. Lakeside is a GREAT place to live because it’s full of GREAT people.
Not everything worked as smoothly as we wanted but then nothing ever does. Next year, we’ll do the Third Annual Lakeside Crawdad Festival better and we’ll order MORE crawdads.
A funny note – after the festival, two of us took the proceeds to Oregon First Community Bank in Lakeside on Monday morning. Picture two age 60+ slightly overweight ladies with a black Safeway shopping bag stuffed full of bills. When we got into the bank about 11:00 a.m. on Monday morning, the teller says “Please tell me you have $1 bills”.
There were 2 people behind us holding their ATM cards because the ATM machine wasn’t working. Turns out we had ALL the $1 and $20 bills in town, and I mean ALL of them. The teller had to process our transaction before they had enough $20’s to load the ATM. Gosh – feels good to be successful.
Mattie Lane
Event Coordinator
Second Annual Lakeside Crawdad Festival
