Festival Days returns

See more on Festival Days events and its schedule in a special section in today’s edition.

Festival Days, the area's biggest annual celebration, returns this weekend to Havre, with a parade, food, entertainment, shows, vendors and much more.

Festival Days began in the 1980s originating as a revival of an older celebration, a community music festival held in the area from the 1930s until the 1960s, and has grown into a community-wide celebration with many regular events as well as new additions each year.

Among the returning events is the Kiwanis Pancake Feed Breakfast, which started in the 1950s before being integrated into festival days and helps fund the Havre Eagles Club’s projects.

The breakfast will start at 7 a.m. at the Eagles Club Saturday.

The Eagle Club will also have a street dance by the club starting tonight at 8 p.m. and on Saturday at the same time.

PJ’s Restaurant and Casino will be holding a street dance of their own at 9 p.m. today on the 300 block of Main Street.

The centerpiece event of Festival Days is the parade, which will go down Fifth Avenue as always with floats from local civic organizations, businesses and sometimes, political candidates.

Parade float judging will begin at the Havre High School parking lot at 9:15 a.m. with the parade itself starting at 10 p.m.

While many events don’t start until the weekend proper many are already underway, including the Friends of the Library Book Sale, which continues in conjunction with Festival Days today until 6 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. with donated and retired books on sale in a fundraiser that will help fund the Friends for the coming year.

The event will help pay for the library to license movies for screenings, as well as prizes of its reading programs.

Another returning event is the Hi-Line Quilt Guild’s Festival of Quilts at the Holiday Village Mall until 6 p.m. tonight, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday.

Independence Bank will be holding an event featuring root beer floats until 5 p.m. today as well.

The Steve Heil Memorial Car Show, which has been running since 2014, will also be returning on Third Street until 9 p.m. tonight for car enthusiasts to show off and see each others rides, an event honoring the memory of local enthusiast Steve Heil.

Another mainstay event of Festival Days, the 48-Hour Softball Tournament will also be returning and starts tonight at 6 p.m. at the Sixth Avenue Memorial Field, with teams from around the region and Canada coming to compete.

Tomorrow will kick off a lot of Festival Days’ other big events like the Frank DeRosa Railroad Museum special run of model trains.

Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., the special display will set up in the museum’s basement, depicting a scene reminiscent of the local area in historic times which will be accompanied by a brief history of the local railroad.

Festival Days will also cap off this year’s Saturday Markets, a 20-year tradition for the area, started after work on Havre Town Square was completed by the Havre Area Chamber of Commerce.

Vendors from across the region come to sell farm and garden produce, baked goods, artwork, crafts and more.

Montana State University-Northern radio station KNMC will be hosting a tribute band concert from 1 to 9 p.m. at Town Square as well, a new event for Festival Days.

The Havre Jaycees will have their Glow Run at Veterans Memorial Park on 11th Street West, formerly US Bank Park, at 8 p.m. Saturday and the Havre Trap Club’s Moonlight Shoot will be at the same time at the Trap Club.

On Sunday the Bear Paw Beast One-Mile Family Fun Run will start at Northern Sunday at 11 a.m. after many other events have wrapped up, with several events having their final day Sunday.