Celebrate Washington attracts steady crowd

Washington?s square was alive with music, food and games all day long Saturday for Main Street Washington?s ?Celebrate Washington.? Main Street director Amy Vetter said she was happy with how the event went and happy that the crowd was steady throughout the day.

?We had a really nice variety of musical acts,? said Vetter.

Vetter said she was pleased to have 26 artists for the art show in Central Park. She said the storm Saturday night hit as she and the other volunteers were finishing their cleanup.

The day began at 8 a.m. with a Flying Pigs Duathlon, which required participants to run 5 kilometers, bike 20 miles and then run 1.5 miles to the finish line.

The duathlon was a joint venture between Main Street Washington and Bodywrx. Teri Hartzler of Bodywrx said the race was a tremendous success. She said Mother Nature cooperated by providing cloud cover for most of the race.

?It was awesome, and it was a great day with beautiful weather,? Hartzler said. ?It worked well combining it with Celebrate Washington. We plan to do that every year.?

This was the first year the duathlon was held in conjunction with Celebrate Washington. Last year, the duathlon was in September.

The duathlon included 33 individual participants and five teams of three members for a total of 48 participants. The overall male winner was Michael Girard of Keokuk, who completed the race in 1 hour and 22 minutes. Cindy Blake of Wayland won the overall female division with a time of 1 hour and 42 minutes.

For the team competition, each member of the team would do a different leg of the race. The first team winner was ?Plan B? and included team members Todd Patterson, Kiowa Keith and Phil Roudabush. The second team winner was ?Team Hoss? composed of Deana Custer, Julie Evans and Angie Staley.

Chris Linnenkamp supervised the three-on-three basketball tournament and the 3-point and free-throw contests that followed it. Linnenkamp is from Dallas, Texas and grew up playing in a national three-on-three tournament called ?Hoop It Up.? Linnenkamp heard that Main Street director Amy Vetter was looking for activities for Celebrate Washington, and he suggested a basketball tournament.

?There are a lot of kids who like basketball in Washington,? said Linnenkamp. ?I thought a tournament would be a good idea for them. For its first year, it went how we expected it to. We plan on doing it as long as we have Main Street.?

Linnenkamp and a host of Main Street volunteers set up six hoops along South Iowa Avenue and then placed tape on the road to mark the 3-point and free throw lines.

Ten teams signed up to play in the tournament. There were two in the adult division, two in the high school division and six in the 6

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grade. Linnenkamp said all the teams were boys. There was one girls? team that signed up but because there was no other girls? team for them to play, the team was refunded its registration fee.

The ?All Stars? team won the men?s division. The team known as ?So High? won the high school bracket, and a team from Wilton called the ?Wilton Beavers? won the junior high division. Linnenkamp said he advertised the tournament on the Internet, and that is how the team from Wilton learned of the event.

?We tried to get the word out all over southeast Iowa,? said Linnenkamp. ?I would definitely say it was a success.?

Linnenkamp?s wife Kim was in charge of the children?s activities on the south side of the square. Children slid down an inflatable slide, made things at a craft station, rode a mechanical bull, jumped around in a bounce house, rode ponies, petted exotic animals and dunked adults in a dunk tank. Kim said there was good attendance at the activities and there are plans to have those things at Celebrate Washington next year.

Gary Murphy and his brother Tom ran the petting zoo. Gary brought chickens, rabbits, miniature donkeys, goats, and one of his llamas.

?The llama here is pretty docile,? said Gary. ?I think it?s got a little alpaca in it.?