Colfax revives Concrete River Festival

Runners slow down to get doused in color. This station was just beyond the water slide.

Colfax shook off its summer slumber Friday and Saturday when the Concrete River Festival cranked up with a variety of new and old events. It was the first Colfax summer celebration in six years and returned the town to the lineup of other summer community events around the county.

Runners proudly displayed their colors.

“Overall, I think it was a great success. It brought Colfax back to life,” Mayor Todd Vanek commented.

He said he believes some of the new events like the Color Mob 5K run down the South Palouse River channel and Friday’s Cruise Night brought in a lot of participants and spectators.

The Concrete River Festival was keyed by a core committee of seven members. Each committee member was responsible for one of the activities and recruited their volunteers to assist.

Vanek noted the Color Mob 5K run down the river channel involved more than 40 volunteers who helped produce the major event.

Vanek said the CRF core groups plan a meeting for Aug. 9 to review what worked and what didn’t work over the two-day run of events. He noted the groups want to peg a “base line” to use in planning future editions of the festival.

The event picked up the pace Friday night when the Rolling Hills Derby Dames gave a demonstrasion in the First Baptist Church lot on Mill Street, site for much of the weekend action.

Spectators filled grandstand units which were put in place for the derby exhibition. Most of the derby girls remained in town to take part in Cruise Night.

The mayor said he was amazed at the number of people who watched the action along the full length of Mill Street. Cruisers were able to loop at each end of the street and roll both directions.

A count of waiver forms signed by the cruisers indicated at least 24 entries in the event. Vanek and others on the Cruise Night committee issued 85 “tickets” for a variety of offenses.

A beer garden and cruise music accompanied the event.

Saturday started at 6 a.m. with a half marathon race out the North Palouse River Road. Runners reversed course past the Glenwood intersection. Colfax High 2012 grad Morgan Willson, a state distance and cross country champion, topped a field of seven runners with a time of 1:29.05.

Runners and others had a chance to attend a breakfast to benefit the Whitman County Sheriff’s Chaplaincy at the United Methodist Church.

The CRF parade, one of the traditional Colfax summer events, started on Mill Street at 10 a.m. and honored Councilman Don Henderson who will conclude 16 years in the city council this year. The parade featured visiting royalty and floats from Ritzville and Rosalia.

Vanek said one of the hitches in the weekend events was the water fight part of the parade which was one of his assignments. He noted entrants and spectators weren’t too sure about what that involved. Whitman Library staffers and readers stepped in at the last minute to finish out the parade.

The car show at the Baptist lot drew 24 entrants, and the Best of Show pick of the crowd was the restored 1954 Ford pickup entered by Mike and Judy Callahan of Lewiston.

More than 400 people ran in the Color Mob run which took entrants down a mile of the South Palouse River channel early Saturday afternoon. Lori Brown, head of the Color Mob event, said the entrants were dispatched in flights with the first groups going off at 1 p.m. and the last group at 1:45.

The run was not timed, but the first finishers of the 5K event arrived back at Schmuck Park in less than 20 minutes.

Brown said many of the runners came from Spokane and the Coeur d’Alene areas. The event also picked up Colfax High School graduates from the class of 1983 who were in town for their 30-year reunion.

The last runners in the Color Mob run were sent off at 1:45, and the last entrants went down the artificial turf slide into the river channel after 2 p.m.

Runners had all types of reactions to the slide. Many of the youngsters in the race opted to go down on the laps of their parents.

Brown said the Seattle organizers of the run have promised to send a demographic chart showing the points of origin of the entries. She said Facebook reportedly had heavy traffic in postings after the unique Colfax race.

Colfax teacher Sharon Hall was the owner of the winning duck, number 312, in the Concrete River Festival Duck Dash race. Start of the Chamber of Commerce event in the South Palouse River channel was delayed about 20 minutes until the last of the Color Mob entrants slid down the artificial rug into the river channel at the South Main bridge.

Colfax Boy Scouts carried the plastic tub of ducks upstream to the start of the South Palouse River channel, dumped in the yellow floaters, and escorted the flock to the finish line at Rosauers. The flock of floating ducks did pass some of the last flight entrants and stragglers in the 5K run.

A total of 225 ducks were purchased for the race. First prize was a $500 Chamber bucks shopping spree in Colfax.

The concert by blues singer Sammy Eubanks at Schmuck closed the lineup of Saturday events. Food service and beer garden enhanced the concert.

The concert began with an opening set performed by The Skivees, a teen trio from Eubanks’ home town in Priest River, Idaho.