Following are excerpts from a March 13 Thisweekend story.
by Andrew Miller
Thisweek Newspapers
Goodbye to Rambling River Days. Hello again to Dew Days.
Rambling River Days, the annual summer celebration in the city of Farmington, has undergone a major overhaul this year – reverting back to its old name of Dew Days and moving out to the Dakota County Fairgrounds.
Residents can expect a different feel to this year’s festival, which
runs June 22-28. With the move to the fairgrounds, event organizers are
looking to create a sort of “mini Dakota County Fair,” said Maribeth
Vanderbeck, Dew Days 2009 chair.
The festival’s new digs will allow for a host of new events: motocross
time trials, a scaled-back version of the county fair’s midway
carnival, and booths for civic groups to hold fundraisers and local
vendors to promote their goods and services.
The move from Schmitz-Maki Ice Arena, the hub of last year’s festival,
out to the fairgrounds “just made sense,” Vanderbeck said. “We were
trying to make a piece of land into a fairground. Now we have a
fairground.”
Favorite events from past years – such as the Kiss the Pig contest, bed
races, Flavors of Farmington food expo and the Miss Farmington Pageant
– return to this year’s festival.
The switch back to the name Dew Days was a no-brainer, Newberg said.
Originally called Mountain Dew Days – the city at one time had the
highest per capita consumption of the highly caffeinated soda pop in
the country – the festival’s name was eventually shortened to just Dew
Days.
In 2005, the festival became Rambling River Days as a nod to one of the
city’s natural resources – the Vermillion River. But Farmington
residents just didn’t seem to cotton to the new name.
“Even through that change, people still called it Dew Days,” Newberg
said. “Dew Days was short, simple, and everybody knows it as that.”
“When people say (the name of the festival) they say Dew Days,”
Vanderbeck added. “The name Rambling River Days does not roll off the
tongue.”
Pepsi, which makes Mountain Dew, at one time sponsored the festival, but this played no part in the name changes, Newberg said.
“This has nothing to do with any company or corporation,” she said.
Even buttons will cost $3 this year. Button-holders get admission to
Dew Days and free parking at the fairgrounds. Some activities, like the
motocross time trials and the music events, will have an additional fee.
The $3 buttons help cover the cost of Dew Days and, if there’s any
profit, other events put on by CEEF, the nonprofit Castle
Rock-Empire-Eureka-Farmington Enhancement Group. CEEF also hosts a
community expo in January, the Halloween Walk and Support the Troops
Haunted House in the fall, a community Christmas celebration and an
Easter carnival.
The Web site for Dew Days 2009 is at www.dewdays.com.
Andrew Miller is at
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