Hi-Line Living: The Festival Days parade

The Festival Days theme was “Honoring Our Past and Celebrating Our Future,” this year and it did just that as community members came together to take part in the festivities.

The highlight of the festival, the parade, went swimmingly down 5th Avenue Saturday. The streets were lined with on-lookers for the floats from many organization, clubs, businesses and community members.

The favorites of the judges were Northern Montana Hospital for best commercial float, First Lutheran Church for best noncommercial float and Havre Day Activity for the mayor’s choice category.

The Hi-Line Quilt Guild Festival of Quilts Show, the Pasma-Peck Dinner, the 48-hour Softball Tournament and the Friends of the Library Book Sale, all started on Friday. The Havre High School football game and Hill County Community Foundation’s presentation titled, “A Night on the Town: Discovering Our Past, Influencing Our Future,” at the Old Post Office kicked off Festival Days Saturday.

Festival Days saw the last Saturday Market of this year as well.

“It’s been a great year,” Patty Nordrum said. “There was only one bad week for us because of rain.”

Nordrum and her business partner, Gail Pollington, ran their booth selling jams and felt accessories all summer. They said they will continue to take orders and go to a couple of shows to keep selling their wares until next year’s Saturday Market season.

Micki Neuwerth, of Sharp Produce, said that most of her produce gets donated or dehydrated after the last Saturday Market, which she has had a booth in for six years.

The Friends of the Library Book Sale saw great amounts of donations and had their tables filled for those keen enough to take them up on the great deal.

A plastic grocery bag filled with used books cost but a dollar and new books cost a dollar each. Many people could be seen testing their arm strength with bags of books, and the Friends had more than enough book donations to the Havre-Hill County Library to keep refilling the holes made in the inventory.

Festival Days seemed to go without a hitch and the anticipation of one of the biggest weekends in Havre did not fade into disappointment, but into satisfaction after north-central Montanans and neighbors were treated to this gathering of community, a solid win from the Lights and the celebration of Havre’s future and past.