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| 8/4/2009 10:45:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article | Starbuck Dragon Boat races
Saturday
Chad Koenen
In just its second year, the Starbuck Dragon Boat Festival has nearly doubled in size.
What began as an 18-team race last year has already grown to a 34-team, all-day-race-spectacular planned for this weekend in Starbuck. With an average of 20 people per team, including spectators converging on Starbuck City Park, Starbuck Dragon Boat Festival organizers hope this year's event will not only be bigger, but better than last year's inaugural event.
"We are very excited for it," said Starbuck Area Chamber of Commerce Director Lori Vaadeland.
The Starbuck Dragon Boat Festival weekend will kick off on Saturday, August 7, with a spaghetti dinner at 5:30 p.m. and the parade of teams beginning at 6:30 p.m. The night wraps up with the opening ceremony at 7 p.m. and music and entertainment which will begin around 7:30 p.m.
The races will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday morning and run throughout the day. At 1 p.m. kid activities will get underway. Among the activities will be a variety of games in the shelter and inflatables.
The day will wrap up with a winner's ceremony at 5 p.m. and DJ to follow.
For more information about the Starbuck Dragon Boat Festival visit the festival online at www.starbuckdragonboat.com.
Volunteers sought
Vaadeland said volunteers are still needed for a number of jobs throughout the weekend. With so many teams entered in the race, more volunteers than ever will be needed to make sure the weekend remains safe and goes off without a hitch.
Anyone who would like to donate some of their time to do everything from parking cars to watching the entrance or helping with any number of activities is being sought to contact the chamber office at 239-4220.
Parking changes
With such a large amount of people expected to be at the city park, organizers are taking precautions by making some changes to this year's race weekend-most notably a change in parking.
Unlike last year when parking was allowed in the beach parking lot, Vaadeland said no one will be allowed to park in the beach parking lot unless they have a parking permit. She said the move is meant to help keep a compacted area as safe as safe as possible during the busy race weekend. Instead of parking in the park, people are being asked to park at centralized locations in town and get shuttled into city park by a bus.
"We really want to stress that people from the community need to go to the parking spots and be shuttled to the park," she said.
Rainbow Rider will be running multiple busses at a time to pick people up at one of the parking lots located at: the Starbuck Airport, Cenex, Fron Lutheran Church and First National Bank (handicapped parking only). Vaadeland said "we will have shuttle busses running all day on Friday and Saturday," and will transport people from their car to the park and vice versa until 10:30 p.m. on both night's. The busses will drop everyone off in the park near the bandshell.
On Friday evening there will be two busses that will begin at 3:30 p.m. On Saturday three busses will start picking people up at 8 a.m. at the same locations. There will also be pickup/drop-off points downtown in Starbuck at the Minnewaska Lutheran Home, Starbuck Depot, and Hobo Park. The shuttles are to be used free of charge for all spectators and racers.
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