Rosalia ready for Battle Days celebration

Battle Days blasts off Friday, as Rosalia’s 43rd town festival takes hold of the city this weekend.

Events are marked up and down Main Street this year. Kelly Brown of Malden has painted old-timey Battle Days-themed scenes on windows of businesses up and down Whitman Ave.

Battle Days coordinator Sarah Birrenkott noted Brown’s work is part of the heavy influence of arts on this year’s Battle Days blast.

Commemorative posters featuring a design by Rosalia student Tyler Mundt will be available, as will buttons designed by student Alexandra Naught.

Rosalia High’s art students will show their work for the year in a primitive motif at the “Back to the Stone Age” art show at the Budding Rose Gallery. Pottery, ceramic sculptures, paintings, drawings and photography will be on display, as will new exhibits from artists all over the Pacific Northwest.

Young chalk artists will have their shot at making a mark by getting chalk from Pat’s Books and drawing up the sidewalk beginning just after the parade.

Rosalia’s royalty court of Queen Maddy St. John and Princesses Haley Lindgren, Heather Wilson and Brittany Terrell will host a dinner for the incoming John Wayne Trail Riders to kick off festivities at the school Friday at 5 p.m.

That will be followed by the annual town variety show in the school gymnasium at 7 p.m. and the Drovers Junior Rodeo at the rodeo grounds.

Saturday events begin with the scout breakfast at the Fire Station at 7 a.m.

Breakfasters can run off extra calories with The Step-n-Toe Fun Run, which takes off from the Texaco Visitor Station at 8 a.m. Signup begins at 7 a.m.

Rosalia’s youngsters will assemble in front of the library at 9:45 for the 10:15 a.m. children’s parade.

At 10:45, Mayor Jim Stenhouse and Grand Marshals Dave and Ruth Mary Preston will welcome all to kick off the grand parade.

Birrenkott said the Battle Days committee chose to honor the Prestons because of their years of dedicated service to Rosalia.

A 3-on-3 basketball tournament, sponsored by the junior class, will take over Whitman Ave. between the post office and the coffee shop at noon.

The RHS freshman class will serve up hot barbecue at the fire station from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Classic cars will shine in front of the Texaco station beginning at noon.

Food and craft vendors will be downtown throughout the day, and the town museum and Texaco station will be open all day for tours.

Horses will rip around the rodeo grounds at 3 p.m. with a special $1,000 barrel race sponsored by the Rosalia Rodeo Association and the National Barrel Racing Association. Admission is free.

Drovers Junior Rodeo also returns to the grounds Saturday and at 10 a.m. Sunday for team roping, barrel racing, breakaways and goat tying.

The town’s Performing Arts Center will be the scene of a flurry of cowboy poetry readings beginning at 2 p.m. Saturday.

The John Wayne Trail Riders are scheduled to hit Malden for a trail-style cookout breakfast at the Malden Community Church Thursday and Friday.

Events wrap Sunday, with a community worship service at 10:30 a.m. in the school gym and a Jack & Jill Softball Tournament at the city park at 1 p.m.