Keota Fun Days begins today

KEOTA ? The most extroverted town in America hopes to welcome thousands of visitors this weekend for the annual Keota Fun Days. Andy Conrad, co-chairman of the Fun Days, estimated between 2,000 and 3,000 people visited Keota during the town?s celebration last year, and he thinks the town could repeat that feat.

Keota Fun Days is a two-day event that begins this evening and lasts all day Saturday. The activities begin Friday with carnival rides at the city park at 5 p.m. They will be followed by a horseshoe tournament at 6 p.m., which has become a staple of the Fun Days.

Conrad has helped organize the Fun Days for the past 10 years, which is also how long the horseshoe tournament has been a fixture at the celebration. Faced with a shoestring budget, he and the other organizers were looking for inexpensive events that would be fun for a large group of people, and they decided on horseshoes.

?We normally have 32, two-person teams in the horseshoe tournament,? he said. ?It?s been full every year. Those guys will play in the rain. As long as it?s not lightning, they will pitch horseshoes.?

A food stand on the small pavilion will open Friday night from 5:30 to 8 p.m. and sell sirloin and pork sandwiches, bratwursts, hot dogs, walking tacos and rib eye steaks, among other things. The food booth will re-open Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Saturday?s events begin at 8 a.m. with the Keota Fun Run down the Keota-Harper Road. The grand parade starts at 11 a.m.

Carnival rides and games will continue Saturday afternoon. Pony rides and a garden tractor pull will be a few of the fun things available, too. The Keota Fire Department will host an open house from 1 to 4 p.m. Also happening at 1 p.m. is a washer toss at the fire station.

Conrad said the washers are 3 inches in diameter. The object of the game is to toss them at a box with a PVC pipe in the center. Participants get points for landing the washer in the box and even more points for landing it in the pipe.

There will also be a bean bag tournament at 1 p.m. Conrad said the bean bag equipment is all new because the old equipment was destroyed in a fire a few years ago.

?A lot of our props were in the storage building that burned,? he said. ?We had our own games and prizes for the carnival, and all that stuff went up in the fire, too. We lost everything, so we had to update everything.?

Conrad said it was a lot of work to rebuild the props that were lost, but he was glad to have the help from the people in town.

?Keota is a pretty generous community,? he said. ?I?m pretty proud of that.?

Saturday night will feature events such as Hypnotist Doug Thompson at the Keota Schools big gym at 5 p.m., which is the first year for that event. The Bill Riley Talent Show is at 7 p.m. There will be two dances Saturday night, one for kids 12 and under, which will be from 7 to 9 p.m. and then for people ages 13 and over from 9 p.m. to midnight. Fireworks will be shot off at 9:30 or at dusk, whichever comes first.

The weekend?s events will come to a close Sunday morning with a Church in the Park service at Wilson Park at 9 a.m.