For the 116th time, the Kansas Wheat Festival will take place in Wellington July 6-10.
The Wellington Area Chamber of Commerce/CVB is moving forward, full steam ahead to make this year's event bigger and better than ever. This week, the Chamber released the festival schedule. It can be viewed online on the Chamber's website (click here).
“We are very, very excited for the Kansas Wheat Festival this year,” said Chamber Executive Director, Annarose White.
“We are thrilled to have the partnership of TECT Aerospace,” White continued “They are one of our top 10 employers in the county, they've just been a huge part of the history and the future of the City of Wellington, it's been great working with them.”
There will be events taking place throughout Wellington for the duration of the festival. The marquee event is the Thursday night street dance on July 7.
“The band Little Texas coming this year is a huge growing moment for the festival,” White said.
The wheat fest parade will be Friday night at 8 p.m., the theme this year is “From Wheat to Wings” and it promises to be a full parade with it being an election year.
Speaking of elections, the Sumner County Farm Bureau Candidate Forum is on the schedule this year for Saturday at 4 p.m. Anyone running for public office is invited, and each will get five minutes to speak. The event should run about two hours and will take place at the Raymond Frye Complex, 320 N. Jefferson.
New events include a Mini-Health Fair by Sumner Regional Medical Center during the Picnic in the Park on July 6, it will feature health screenings, bone density testing, giveaways and more.
Also new in 2016 is the Kansas Quilt Show at the First United Methodist Church, 202 W. Harvey. There will be displays and speakers talking about different quilting techniques on Thursday and Friday from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. And Saturday 10 a.m. To 3 p.m.
At 2 p.m. On Saturday, another new event will be taking place at the Wellington Rec Center, a ping-pong tournament.
The Wellington Public Library is also hosting a few new wheat fest events this year, one of them is the “Esteemed Townsfolk Spelling Bee on July 11 at 6 p.m. The event will be a part of the the library's 100th birthday celebration.
See these events and more on the official Kansas Wheat Festival schedule, printed versions of the schedule will be available soon!
As usual, the Kansas Wheat Festival button is an essential for any festival goer, this year it was designed by Samson Ledesma of Wellington. Volunteers selling buttons around town along with all of Wellington's financial institutions, Dillon's and Wal-Mart. They are three dollars through the end of June, and will go up to five dollars beginning July 1. T-shirts ($15 for adults, $12 for youth) and mugs ($10) featuring the button design are also on sale this year.
