Washington welcomes in summer with Ridiculous Days celebration

WASHINGTON - Washington residents spread out blankets on their front lawns and blasted the air conditioning from their parked cars on Saturday, June 6 to celebrate the Ag parade that ended the three-day long Ridiculous Days Celebration.

Director of the Washington Chamber of Commerce Michelle Redlinger said 128 tractors traveled through the town on Saturday and 40 of those were brand-new entries. In the 2014 tractor parade, the record was more than 100 tractors but Redlinger feels that might not be the record anymore.

'This could have broken that record,” she said.

With so many ag families hurting because of the pandemic, seeing people out to show support was uplifting, she said. The ag parade gave community members a change to support each other and their community all at once.

'I think a lot of it is because other parades and festivals have been canceled so we persevered on and made the trip and I also think maybe some people had not considered it really jumped on it because it's the one thing they could do to participate in the community,” she said.

Normally, Washington holds a four day celebration, the Summer Classic. Each day has a theme and Ridiculous Day is the theme for Saturday.

Due to COVID-19, the summer classic was canceled and Ridiculous Day was expanded into a three-day celebration. Although it worked well this year, Redlinger said many want to see the four-day celebration return for next year.

'We plan on bringing our four day Summer Classic festival back next year and I'm sure it will be a welcome opportunity for the community and hopefully we will be in a situation where we can do that safely next year,” she said.

While the Summer Classic usually focuses on fun and activities, the spotlight was on retailers this year, she said. Redlinger said there were no crowds and social distancing efforts were abided by resulting in no problems.

Redlinger said one retailer she spoke to said the three-day sale event helped make up most of the financial loss the business suffered due to being shut down from the pandemic.

Char Andersen and June Henderson, co-owners of The Village, reported a positive sales increase due to the extended celebration.

With good weather and people ready to get out and support small business, it was the perfect recipe for a successful weekend, Henderson said.

'It's worked better that we've gone three days instead of one because we've had nice crowds all three days. We were thinking we would have lower crowds for three days that would add up to the usual, but I think we've had more than that,” Henderson said.