Darrtown plans reunion event in September


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More information about the Darrtown Reunion and Fall Festival can be found at the Darrtown website — www. darrtown.com

Last year’s bicentennial celebration was such a success, residents did not want to wait 100 years to do it again, so the bicentennial committee quickly decided to stay together and begin planning a Darrtown reunion for this year.

Some of the Sept. 12 event will be reminiscent of last year’s two-day gala, but there will be some new wrinkles, too.

The parade will be back. There will be plenty of food. The most important part of last year’s celebration was the community coming together and joining in friendship. Those are the most important parts of plans for this year’s event, as well.

New this year, however, will be a “Skillet Toss” for the ladies and a corn hole tournament organizers hope will draw 30 teams.

“Bicentennial committee members heard from a number of people personally, by e-mail and by mail that they wanted something on an annual basis,” said Fred Lindley, one of last year’s organizers for the highly-successful event marking the community’s 200th birthday. “The committee quickly transitioned to reorganizing for a fall festival. We could have done a number of things but decided on a Darrtown Reunion on the second Saturday in September.”

Women are invited to take part in the Skillet Toss at 2 p.m. that day and there will be contests for individuals and teams. It will be an unusual event brought home by Lindley and his wife from a trip to Maine.

“My sister, Betty Daniels and her husband have gone to New England for a number of years. My wife, Debbie, and I went with them a couple years ago and we went to the Fryburg (Maine) Fair. They told us about the skillet toss. It is a big deal up there. It draws 500 people,” Lindley said. “I said, ‘We’re going to try that.’ The Reunion Committee will provide the skillets so they are the same—nine-inch, two-pound skillets.”

The competition will be held at E-Dot Park in Darrtown with a line going out from the throwing spot. Throws will be measured in feet but the number of feet off of that line will be subtracted from that number. Throws will be made underhand.

“If the throw is 50 feet, but it is 10 feet off the line, they will get credit for a 40-foot throw,” he said.

Entrants will pay $3 per throw with a maximum of two throws. For the individual competition, there will be four age categories: 15-29, 30-44, 45-59 and 60 and over. Winner in each age group will receive a $25 Kroger gift card with second-place finishers getting $10 gift cards.

Various organizations and businesses have been challenged to enter a team in the skillet toss, in which each woman will pay $3 to throw and distances will be collected. Age categories will be the same, but there will also be a fifth combo age group with one woman of each age category teamed up. Cash prizes will be awarded.

Anyone interested in more information or in entering, can contact Lindley at 937-602-3270 or Joe Pater at 513-756-0444. Information is also on the committee’s web site, darrtown.com.

Another new feature from last year’s bicentennial will be the corn hole contest, which will bring a spirit of fun competition as well friendship to the event.

That event will also be held at E-Dot Park, beginning at noon for two-person teams. Entry fee is $40 and first prize will be $500, second prize $250 and third prize $100. The prizes are based on 30 teams entering and prize money will be adjusted if they do not reach that number of entries.

Entry fee must be paid on registration, which is needed by Sept. 6. Tournament draw will be held at 11 a.m. on Sept. 12, the day of the event.

Entry can be done at Don’s Carry-Out or the Hitching Post or by calling Don Beckett, at (513) 523-6171 after 9 p.m.

Visitors to the 2015 Darrtown Fall Festival may begin their day as early as 7:30 a.m., when the Darrtown Methodist church hosts a Pancake Breakfast in the church fellowship room.

The festival officially begins at 10 a.m., with a parade of more than three dozen units, including the Talawanda High School band through the village. Classic cars and trucks, antique tractors, horses and wagons will stream through the streets of Darrtown. The parade route will start in the southeast part of Darrtown, travel north on Main Street (aka, the Walter “Smokey” Alston Memorial Highway), and end at E-Dot Park in the northwest corner of the village.

A brief opening ceremony will be held at 11 a.m., on a portable stage in E-Dot Park’s Don Beckett Field. Then, the stage will be taken over by musicians, organized by Bill Clark and Earl Hendricks.

Throughout the day, nearly three-dozen vendors will display their wares and many of the cars and tractors that participated in the parade will be on display.

The St. Matthew Lutheran church will provide a German Beer Garden that will be located near the stage. The beer garden menu will offer an $8 dinner of roast pork, potatoes, green beans, dinner roll and water or pop. The sandwich menu will include pulled pork, metts, smoked sausage, and hot dogs. Beer and pop will be sold separately.

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