Chisholm Fest celebrates 25 years

A crowd spent Sunday afternoon and evening enjoying a marathon of music in Athletic Park as the 25th annual Chisholm Trail Festival came to a close.

The Summer Sunday of Music event, featuring more than eight hours of both local and national music, drew a large audience to the park’s bandshell area, as acts such as Maddijo, Ray Nicodemus, Sonlit, Article One, Mike Burns, Decypher Down, Building 429 and Superchick entertained the audience and drew people in to town from cities such as Abilene, El Dorado and Wichita, and from states such as Colorado and Oklahoma.

Pandea Smith, festival board chairperson, said while it was difficult to count the crowd, festival staff is “pretty confident” there were more than 2,000 people during the evening portion from 8 p.m. and later. In the afternoon, Smith said there were about 1,200 to 1,500 people at the music festival.

The event was organized by Rob Britton of NextGen Productions.

Smith said she heard someone say that “Rob Britton sure knows how to throw a party,” and she said that was a pretty accurate statement.

“It was very successful,” she said. “He got the word out. He did a great job.”In the midst of the music festival, a new Newton Idol was crowned, as Tawna Mosiman took first place, with Emily Pomeroy in second and Braidyn Rucker in third.

Also Sunday night, festival-goers flocked to Military Park to see Levi Gangi and the Diamond W Wranglers perform an evening concert. About 300 people attended that concert.

The music capped off four days of events, including the street dance, Friday and Saturday night concerts, the fireworks display and a variety of activities in the park.

Attendance at the daytime events was about normal or even slightly higher compared to previous years, Smith said, but the crowds for the Friday and Saturday night classic rock acts was down considerably.

Smith said she wasn’t sure what the reasons were for the decline in evening attendees, but she said the committee — which was short on members this year — may not have gotten the word out about the events.

She said she hoped some of it was because people were out of town, and she said selecting all classic rock music may have been “too new” for attendees.

While the festival needs people to come out and attend events, as well as sponsors, she said the greatest need is for more committee members.

The festival also saw its share of friendly competition. Efrain Bernal won the first ever Cow Chip Toss, featuring real cow chips, and received for his efforts a golden cow chip.

Seven-year-old Jeb Carlson took home the first place prize in Sunday’s chili cook-off.

Corey Stanford, who has hunted in the festival’s cow chip hunt for nine years, finally found the cow chip by a bush near the cemetery and Chisholm Middle School. Stanford told festival staff he thinks he had been close in years past, and he didn’t just wander around but actually used the clues to help locate it.

Here are the results of many of the festival contests. Some results were unavailable as of press time:• Parade: Overall winner, Taylor Gottschalk and her horse, Big Red; first place, Meridian Baptist Church; second place, Dean Davis in his 1938 classic car; third place, Lindsey Friesen and her horse, Thunder.

• Road Rally (teams): First place, J. and K. Sartain, J. Terbovich and N. Krogmeier; second place, M. Meyer, A. Penner, K. League and J. Clark; third place, B. Krogmeier, A. Terbovich and B. Terbovich; fourth place, D. Boese, M. Boese, J. Reynolds and A. Reynolds

• Watermelon Seed Spitting: Children division — first place, Tristin Ducommun; adult division — first place, Efrain Bernal.

• Horseshoe Tournament (doubles): First place, Adam Reep and Buck Bradshaw

• Stick Horse Rodeo: 2- to 3-year-olds — first place, Phebe Harder, second place, Melinda Ducommun; 4- to 5-year-olds — first place, Ryen Terbovich, Zachariah Bazzle and Zach Loomis (tie); 6- to 8-year-olds — first place, Kylie Terbovich, second place , Edward Thompson; 9 years and older — first place, Krista Loomis, second place, Emily Terbovich.

• Pie eating contest: Children division — first place, Jonathan Colvin, second place, Emily Kuhn; adult division — first place, Curtis Colvin, second place, Braden Meyer.

• Hot dog eating contest: Children division — first place, Gabe Libel, second place, Johnny Colvin; adult division — first place, Steve Larson, second place, Richard Vanboken.

• Lemon Roll: Children division — first place, Edward Thompson; adult division — first place, Bill Lachenmayr.

• Water Relay (teams): First place, Brooke Lachenmayr and Jill Lachenmayr.

• Water Balloon Toss (teams): First place, Amanda Eck and Anna Madrano; second place, Vince Holeman and Arron Holeman.

• Lil’ Cowpoke: 0 to 2 years — boy, Zane Stephens, girl, Brittney Terbovich; 3 to 4 years — boy, Chase Litton, girl, Ryen Terbovich; 5 to 6 years, boy, Case Bennett.

• Cow Chip Toss: First place, Efrain Bernal.

• Baby Crawl: 0 to 9 months — first place, Aniyah Owens, second place, Macy Mitchell, third place, Brody Daniels; 10 to 12 months — first place, Arica Kern, second place, Eden Hutson; 13 to 18 months — first place, Drake Grattau.