Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
In 1954, choosing a weekend for the annual Uniontown Sausage Feed, organizers decided on mid-February.
Not long after, having to cancel the growing attraction one year due to snow, they moved the event to the first Sunday in March.
All was well, except for the fact that one day a man named Clark Vining took over the girls basketball program at Colton High School.
More than 50 years into the Uniontown Sausage Feed tradition, the new coach’s teams started making the state tournament, not to mention winning it – always on the first weekend in March – just when parents, players, band members and fans were in the thick of preparing for another Sausage Feed.
This year, the two traditions converge once again as the eight-time defending 1B champion Colton girls open the state tournament in Spokane as the No. 1 seed.
“It’s a long, hard, dedicated week for the entire town,” said Lynn Smith, who will run the Uniontown Community Center’s kitchen and dining room for the Sausage Feed for the 14th year. Her daughter Daylinn, a senior at Colton High, will work the Sausage Feed too, as she has since she was a six-year-old serving pie.
Uniontown kids go to Colton for school.
“It’s a lot of families involved, and a lot of generations in the families,” said Lynn Smith, whose grandparents were original Colton homesteaders.
Calls
Over President’s Day weekend, Smith and volunteers began making calls, to staff 160 people on three shifts the day of the event; from ticket-takers to bussers, table setters, coffee pourers and more.
Smith starts with the list from the year before, and calls to see if the same people would like to volunteer again.
Many families all work the same shift and then sit down to eat, or vice versa.
“Great-grandma did it so we’re carrying on the tradition and still doing it,” Smith said of the workers.
Shifts
Part of this year’s event is an expectation of still more to-go orders. In 2016, volunteers served almost 500 of the boxes. First offered four years ago, sales have grown every year.
Originally, one volunteer per shift handled the to-go window. Now it is two to three.
Also last year, the Clarkston High School ROTC program helped with set-up and as fill-ins on event day. They will participate again this year.
The three shifts are 9:45 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 2:30-close. Shutting down at 5 p.m., clean-up is next.
For the workers, new faces each year join the familiar.
“If the person in that position passed away, you have to find someone new to fill it,” Smith said.
Supplies
Ken Oenning is the Director of the Uniontown Sausage Feed for the 15th year, driving his pickup with canopy down to Lewiston Wednesday to pick up 1,800 pounds of pork shoulders. On Thursday, he returns to a URM distribution center for cans, buckets and boxes of sauerkraut, beans, potatoes, applesauce, butter and whipped cream.
“I get all the stuff and put it in the back door (of the community center),” he said.
Volunteers converge Thursday morning to make sausage. Oenning does not even need to call them.
Proceeds
Last year on Sunday, more than 1,800 people attended, raising an estimated $9,000 for the Uniontown Community Center, which went to general maintenance and payments on a new heating and hot water system installed four years ago.
This year’s proceeds will go to a re-vamp of the front of the community center, including replacing the roof overhang and windows. The work is set for this summer.
Particulars
The 64th Uniontown Sausage Feed runs Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The all-you-can-eat meal is on a first-come, first-served basis or in a box to go. The menu includes sausage from a secret recipe, sauerkraut, mashed potatoes, green beans, rolls, applesauce, pie and beverages. Tickets are available at the door; $12 for adults, kids age 6 to 12 are $8 and younger than 6 $2.
The barbershop quartet, Four Names in a Hat, will perform for guests waiting in line.
Those wanting takeout orders of 10 or more are asked to call ahead at (509) 229-3805.
The beer garden operates upstairs in a room off the balcony over the old gym. Beverages are served from an ice-filled trough; Coors Light, Miller High Life and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.
The beer is sold separately. To-go meals may be brought up to the beer garden.
“Hope we have a good day and a good crowd,” Oenning said.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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