Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
The first Sunday in March–it is a tradition that began when a Sunday in February got snowed out and Uniontown Sausage Feed organizers had to cancel the event and haul the meat across Highway 195. Storing it in the cold lockers at the old Uniontown grocery store, three weeks later, the men rolled the meat back across the street, made sausage out of it and had a sausage feed.
It was the first Sunday in March.
The Uniontown Sausage Feed is now in its 65th year, to be held Sunday, March 5.
Can co-organizer Ken Oenning believe it is now this time of year once again?
“Yes, I believe it, I wish it was over,” he said with a laugh. Last Friday, he put a canopy on his new truck to cover the supplies he will haul up from Lewiston in preparation.
The cost per patron will go up a dollar this year, from $12 for adults to $13, while ages 7-12 changes from $8 to $9 and under-age 6 remains at $2. The all-you-can-eat meals are served on long tables in the basement of Uniontown Community Center, for which proceeds every year go to the building’s maintenance.
The annual March event has raised a consistent $10,000 in net profit each year on servings of sausage, cut green beans, apple sauce, pickles, rolls, mashed potatoes, sauerkraut and pie.
Meals may also be requested to go.
“They make ‘em as fast as they can send ‘em out,” Oenning said.
After he orders supplies and Lynn Smith organizes the kitchen and Shannon Gains the dining room, the week of the event arrives and Oenning hauls ingredients up the Lewiston grade. On Thursday morning this week, as happens every year, a group of mostly men converge on the Community Center from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. to make the sausage out of boneless pork shoulders. A reminder mailing goes out in February to note the day and time, along with an annual report of the Community Center’s expense.
When Sunday arrives, serving food begins at 10 a.m. with an official closing time of 5 p.m. But as the line stretches up and down stairways and around the perimeter of the gym, time can get short.
“If people are in line, we’ll feed ‘em,” said Oenning, recalling a record year of 2,400 people served which went past 7 p.m.
The beer garden will again operate in the community center’s upstairs room off the balcony over the old gym, with beer sold separately from an ice-filled trough. To-go meals may be brought up to the beer garden.
On Saturday, apple sauce is poured into containers, pickles are prepared and the mashed potatoes are made Sunday morning.
“I remember when we took four-to-five hundred-pound bags of potatoes and peeled them all and mashed them the day before,” said Oenning, 74, born and raised in Uniontown, whose first job at the Sausage Feed was setting silverware as a young boy.
It all starts again this year Sunday morning.
“There’s no way I could sit down and eat a meal at 10 a.m. with sauerkraut, I wouldn’t want sauerkraut for breakfast,” Oenning said.
Some things are nonetheless above debate on the first Sunday in March.
“When somebody says sausage, people get pretty doggone hungry,” said Oenning.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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