Barnwell Days not as busy as last year, but still well attended

The Village of Barnwell’s big event, ‘Barnwell Days’ fell almost a month ago on July 15 and 16, and

Mayor Kent Bullock explains that it turned out quite well from all aspects, including attendance and all other festivities.

“We had a lot of people that played volleyball and we also had a pickleball tournament. They both started Friday evening and finished up Saturday morning. We showed two movies Friday night, one for the younger kids and one for the older kids, and then we had the parade.

The parade was big, and we had a lot of people put floats into the parade and a lot that watched. I don’t think it was quite as big as last year — last

year, because of just coming out of COVID, we had a lot of people. This year it wasn’t quite the same.”

The two-day event was absolutely chock-full of events; a volleyball and pickleball tournament, craft sale, movies, a fun run, parade, and a pie contest to name just a few at this year’s Barnwell Days.

“We had quite a lot of activities. We had three bouncy houses and air-inflated activities, there was a bunch for them to do. We had a dance and a lot of people danced with good fireworks afterwards. I think it was a very successful Barnwell Days.”

Relating to the parade, Bullock noted that, for him, the streets seemed much more laden with attendees than it was this year.

“I think it was busier last year, both years I was in the actual parade and I think there were more people lined up last year, but it was still extremely well attended this year.

The streets were lined very heavily with people. We had a lot turn-out for the fun run in the morning, we had pancakes and sausage, and stuff for breakfast that was put on and for supper, we had food trucks come in.”

Bullock also said the food trucks didn’t get as much service as was apparent last year either.

The Village had them come for longer in preparation for there to be extremely long line-ups, however, those line-ups just didn’t seem to come.

“The food trucks we had come in for a longer time this year because last year there were extremely long line-ups. As I understand though, the food trucks maybe weren’t as heavily patronized as they were the first year. We kind of stretched the time out more so people kind of did their own thing, but I’m not sure why there weren’t as many people nthat went to the food trucks. That’s what I’ve heard though, I haven’t talked to any of them to ask them

how they did at Barnwell Days, but from what I understand, they didn’t make quite as much as they thought they would for the hours that they were out there. That’s one of the reasons I think it maybe wasn’t quite as

well attended also because last year there were lines outside of every food truck.”

“We didn’t have any dignitaries there that I’m aware of. We had a lot of local people that put floats in and people from quite a ways away.

There was one fellow that had a lot of old John Deere tractors and that was very interesting. There were a lot of interesting floats in the parade but I don’t believe we had any dignitaries there.”