By Dixon Bledsoe
Walking around Scotts Mills during the 25th annual SummerFest, visitors felt like they were living Americana. In a summer filled with festivals celebrating harvests, tractors, cartoonists, and freedom, Scotts Mills SummerFest has the obligatory corn dogs, barbecue, face painting and craft booths. But there was a feeling about SummerFest that made it unique.
Like the horseshoe contest, complete with a $260 winner-take-all prize. Participants and judges, probably great friends the day before, were every bit as serious as the officials who counted hanging chads in the 2000 election as they argued about points. The horseshoe contest came close to ending its 10 year-run at Summerfest this year. Thankfully, Scotts Mills resident Allen Harrold took up the reins. Next year, he said, he expects to add a Juniors Division.
It’s the little things that gives SummerFest its ambiance. The folks at the horseshoe pit were having a ball, ribbing each other relentlessly, taking a draw on a cold one (American-made, of course), and fielding catcalls from the audience.
Instead of kids spending hard-earned cash on hard-to-win games offering cheap stuffed pandas, they flocked to the free Paper Airplane Contest to see who could win the best-looking plane, longest in the air, and long-distance prizes.
Karen Daniels and Steve Rogers worked the counters behind Bampa’s Express, enticing the SummerFest crowd with the smell of fresh corn dogs, the lure of black licorice, and thirst-quenching bottles of water. Steve, “Bampa” to his grandkids, and Karen are happy to be in Scotts Mills. They are both happy that she is anywhere – they lost their beautiful custom made food booth enroute to their Salem home after working LaPine Frontier Days last month. According to the Oregon State Police, Karen did a remarkable job keeping the family truck upright when the trailer rolled several times after a flat tire. The truck was damaged slightly, Karen has some residual neck and back pain, but says the retired Marion County Sheriff’s office Payroll specialist, “I am so glad to be alive and working at SummerFest here in Scotts Mills. It is a fun, home-town festival.” Adds Steve, a trucker, “We thank the good Lord that she came out of this with no serious injuries, and we still have both the spirit and the dream to continue.” Unfortunately, the $28,000 invested in the booth and inventory was uninsured.
They plan to be back in Scotts Mills next year. Steve says his trucker buddies now refer to the crash site on Highway 22 as “Corndog Corner.”
In this near-the-end of summer festival, there were kid smiles, great smells, bittersweet stories, sunshine and fun. Hometown fun, Scotts Mills style.
