PHOTOS BY JESSE DAVIS / THE VILLAGE REPORTER
VIP STATUS … Swanton Corn Festival Grand Marshal Roger Cooley rides in the annual parade.
SCHOOL SPIRIT … The Swanton High School cheerleading squad leads the way for the Swanton Marching Bulldogs.
SHARING THEIR VOICES … Swanton Corn Festival parade announcers Betsy Gardner (left) and Dalton Rosa-Ruggieri (right) make sure attendees don’t miss a minute of the action.
AMAZING AUBURN … A 1931 Auburn Boattail Speedster lends its classic lines to the Lords of T-Town Car Club car show.
GETTING CRAFTY … A bevy of craft show vendors tentatively await the influx of attendees currently watching the parade during the Swanton Corn Festival.
VYING FOR VOLLEYBALL VICTORY … A spirited serve is sent toward the net during the volleyball competition at the Corn Festival.
By: Jesse Davis
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
jesse@thevillagereporter.com
Throngs of people filled Memorial Park and the streets of downtown Swanton over the weekend for the village’s annual Corn Festival.
The festival, which was themed “The Amaizeing Cornival,” kicked off on Thursday with its first-ever family fun color run, followed by the alumni softball game and 15th annual all-class reunion and party in the park on Friday.
Saturday brought attendees out of the park and into town for the annual parade and back into the park for the festival proper, which included a craft show, the Lords of T-Town Car Club car show, which had 171 entries, inflatables, chicken barbecue, food trucks, three-on-three soccer tournament, volleyball tournament, pickleball tournament, 5K, inflatables, bingo, cornhole tournament, beer and wine tasting, the musical stylings of Chris Crickett and Not Fast Enuff, performances by the Swanton High School cheerleaders and students from Melissa’s Dance Academy, a pageant, a foam dance party, and a meet-and-greet with Swanton’s student sports teams.
Top honors for the event’s 5K were taken home by 22-year-old Nethanel Leupold of Palmyra, Mich., who completed the course in 18:38. Leupold outran a field of 94 runners to clinch the victory.
While in the midst of overseeing the event, Corn Festival Committee Chair Alyssa Walberg shared her thoughts on this year’s festival.
“We have a great turnout. The weather is hot, but the sun is shining and there’s no rain in the forecast,” Walberg said.
“Our car show is max capacity, our vendors are max capacity, we’ve got food, we’ve got inflatables. Things are going phenomenally. The parade is probably just about over, and things are about to get pretty wild in here.”
She added that more than 400 participants ran in the festival’s inaugural color run before thanking the community for turning out.