Farmers Day 2021

The people who bring Farmers Day to Kimball every year are the volunteers. It takes dozens and dozens of people willing to give their time and energy to make a successful Farmers Day.

This includes the chairmen of the committees down to those cleaning up, and it is not just one day of volunteering, it takes months of planning and paperwork.

New events, such as the quilt show and the bike race, would not happen without a few dedicated people directing and organizing the events.

What a difference a year makes as only three young riders participated in the Farmers Day bike race last year and 50 total riders were in the Kid's Bike Race on Friday evening. Jon and Anna-Lisa Heidemann have organized and directed a multitude of bike races, so they knew they needed to go to the school to get their participants, Mary Lynch School. The Heidemanns were pleased with the number of kids that came out to race.

A successful quilt show required lots of volunteers to set up and tear down the displays. Jan Sears organized the first-ever Plains Historical Society quilt show for Farmers Day.

When asked about why, she responded, "Good question, and I asked myself that too. But I can't donate money I don't have. So I donate my time, I guess, and only once in a while to certain groups.

"I am pleased with how it turned out, and we did raise some substantial funds. The funds will go to catalog and preserve photos and some of Tom's (Southard) sports articles."

Sears also used her talents to make a quilt to be raffled off. Her patriotic themed quilt was won by Jeff Nelson.

Tim Nolting, president of the Plains Historical Society, said, attendance was "very good" on Farmers Day for the Smithsonian exhibition at the Fraternal Hall. He said nearly 200 people visited the museum to see the exhibit that day and more than 400 had visited as of Monday. A success, yes.

"It was a steady stream of people all the time," Nolting said. "We received a lot of good comments."

The traveling exhibit will close here Thursday, Sept. 30, and move on to Tecumseh.

The longstanding Farmers Day events, meanwhile, continue to require volunteer staffing.

Kimball High School cross country coach Tiffany Johnson is in her ninth year of running the Fun Run after Pat O'Brien started it and ran it for many years. The 2021 Fun Run marked the 40th year of the race.

Johnson has other individuals to help her with the event, and the Longhorn cross country team is available, either running the race or manning stations along the Fun Run route.

The senior citizen soup supper required volunteers as well as the free annual hamburger feed after the parade. The Longhorn cheerleaders helped serve the noon meal this year, but many of those same volunteers prepared the meal, cooked hamburgers, served and cleaned up.

Operating behind the scenes are the volunteers for the organization of the parade, making sure it goes off without a hitch.

The Kimball County Ag Society Clean Up Derby is a perfect example of volunteers from a multitude of organizations, including the Volunteer Fire Department, that volunteer.

Tyson Culek, who has been in charge of the Clean Up Derby for the past few years, said, "I volunteer for a lot of things in the community and the reason I do it is because I want to give back to my community. I have seen my dad and other people do it when I was little."

Concluding the weekend of fun for Kimball was the air show put on by the Kimball Kamakazee Club. Participants from Colorado, Wyoming, and Nebraska showcased their radio-controlled aircraft and provided an exciting performance of airplanes.