When I was asked to put together a special column of It’s All Greek to Me about Hog Days for the Hog Herald (the official publication of Hog Days) by Susan DeVilder, the managing editor of The Voice, I felt honored and said why not?
I don’t know about you but…
I think the fact that The Voice is once again publishing a Hog Days newspaper this year is a wonderful thing. What a great way to get out information about our community’s signature event.
I don’t know about you but…
When I think about all the things that bring visitors to Kewanee, three things come to mind. Now I don’t know how they rank, but they are: Good’s Furniture, the high school athletic and activities contests and tournaments that take place in our city, and of course, Hogs Days. I mean after all Kewanee is the Hog Capital of World and Hog Days are a big part of that.
When I think back on all the Hog Days that I have witnessed since I came to this community around 45 years ago a lot of things come to mind. My earliest recollections of Hog Days were of me helping out at the world’s largest pork chop barbeque, playing in the Labor Day golf tournament at Baker Park, and sitting in a dunk tank watching some of my students exact some measure of revenge by dunking me. I even once drove an entry in the Hog Day parade (a trip that however didn’t have a harmonious outcome).
I don’t know about you but…
I think that hanging out downtown visiting with friends and acquaintances that have come back for Hog Days is one of the best things about Hog Days. I don’t seem to do as much of this as I have gotten older, but I still, by design or accident, seem to run into a lot of different people during the Hog Days weekend.
I went through a period from about 1985 to the turn of the century where I was unable to participate in the Hog Days festivities very much. I was a high school head football coach and my coaching duties left little time for Hog Days. I did manage to sneak in a few activities, especially with my family and my parents when they would visit their grandchildren over the Hog Days weekend.
During that time, I remember watching the Hog Days Parade on TV while working on football on Saturdays. I could actually see remnants of the parade as entries would drive by our home on East Prospect on their way back to the KHS parking lot after the parade. I even managed to play mud volleyball one year. Definitely not my strong suit
I don’t know about you but…
The Hog Day Stampede is one of my favorite Hog Days events. This well organized and executed event brings a lot of visitors and excitement to Saturday morning. I have enjoyed watching first, my children, and now my grandchildren participate in this event. The past few years I have even taken my lawn chair from our current home up the block to Page St. to cheer on the participants in the three-mile event as they run by (or in some cases, trudge by).
I don’t know about you but…
I think the Hog Day Parade is also another well-organized event. In recent years I have been a part of a contingent that includes my grandchildren as parade spectators. One of my personal highlights was seeing the Budweiser Clydesdales in a recent parade. Any time I get to see these magnificent creatures is a special time for me.
I don’t know about you but…
I think it is time to give a shout out to those most responsible for the Kewanee Hog Festival and that is the Hog Festival Committee. The committee, consisting of Co-Chairpersons Larry Flannery and Mike Komnick, Secretary Janie Metscaviz, and Vice-Chairpersons Robyn Resch, Niles Reamer, Anita Blanks and 10 other committee members, needs to be commended.
And you can’t forget the literally scores of volunteers who just show up to help, who are in the words of Larry Flannery, “the real muscle behind Hog Days”. When you think about all the activities Hog Days has to offer from the carnival, the food vendors, the pork chops, the parade, mud volleyball, the Stampede, the musical entertainment and many others, it is truly a massive undertaking. The amount of time and effort it takes to pull off all the Hog Day Festivals that have ever been held is off the charts.
I don’t know about you but…
I hope that those that attend the festival each year appreciate the efforts of the Committee and volunteers and are slow to criticize them if everything doesn’t always go as they think it should have.
I don’t know about you but…
I think that Kewanee is very fortunate to have “Hog Days”. So my closing thought is to encourage everyone to get out and enjoy the festival in any manner they wish. It doesn’t matter whether that would be as a participant, a performer, a worker or just a casual onlooker. This is not a time for napping. Happy Hogs Days!
