Palouse Days to cap fair season

Ping pong balls will drop from the sky, rubber ducks will be poured into the river and show cars will glitter in the city park for this year’s Palouse Days celebration Friday and Saturday, Sept. 17 and 18.

The kick-off party will be Friday 8 p.m. at the Palouse Tavern. The main parade Saturday will start at 10 a.m.

Grand marshals for the festival this year are Loren and Mary Estes. They have designed and planted three rose gardens around the town and Mary selected the trees planted at the new Palouse RV park last year.

The 28th annual car show, which draws entrants from Spokane, Coeur d’Alene and other cities around the Inland Empire, begins at 9 a.m. in the city park.

Organizer Mike Milano said 248 entered last year. The show is open to vehicles of any type from any era.

A trend this year is the rise in local organizations coming out to raise funds for different causes, said festival organizer Bev Pearce.

North Palouse Vet Clinic, Palouse Community Center, Habitat for Humanity and the Palouse junior high will all be out in force with different activities to help their respective causes.

Recipes from the past five years of the Pearled Barley competition will be featured in a “best of the best” competition. Free samples of those recipes will be served at Heritage Park. Palouse Grain Growers will celebrate its 80th anniversary at the park after the parade.

Palouse Museum will feature historic pottery from Palouse, gathered by Don and Teresa Myott. By visiting yard sales and estate sales around the town, Teresa said she has gathered a fair amount of pottery used around the town in the early 1900s.

The traditional ping pong ball drop will be after the parade. A helicopter from Dale’s Flying Service will release hundreds of colored balls onto Main Street.

Hosted by the Lions Club, the duck race will start at noon with the rubber ducks dumped off Bridge Street into the river. They will float downstream to the park, where the first ball to arrive will merit a prize for the respective owner.

Pearce said the quilt show at her shop, Small Towne Quilts, draws between 60 to 70 entrants each year. Each year, contestants wait until the last minute to bring a quilt.

“All of a sudden Friday I have an explosion of quilts and I don’t know where to put them. It’s crazy,” she said with a smile. The contest ends with a people’s choice award.