I’m not quite sure where summer has gone, but believe it or not we are already in the middle part of July. It seems like this summer has been insanely busy with events, activities and just places to be each day. 

I’m not sure if this year in necessarily more busy than in the past, or if we are still getting used to all of the activities that summer brings after we basically put our lives on hold for a year due to COVID-19. Either way, summer is blowing by, and before we know it our kids will be heading back to school and our flip flops and shorts will be traded for a light jacket and jeans.

Some of my favorite events of the summer take place from the middle of July through the middle of August. It starts with the Henning Festival last weekend and concludes in August with the annual world famous turkey BBQ and Watermelon Day.

In-between those events we have the Ottertail Community Auction and Henning Fly-in, which will both be held on Saturday; as well as the annual OtterFest celebration the second weekend of August and the East Otter Tail County fair the last weekend of July. 

Last weekend was a fun way to kick off the latter half of summer as Friday’s parade and pageant were among some of the more entertaining ones we have had in a few years. A lot of credit goes out to Renae Thalmann for helping to organize the parade, no small task of keeping all of the entries straight and in order, as well as Courtney Wiese for organizing the Little Miss and Henning Festival pageant.

Over the past two years the pageant has featured a specific theme throughout with this year’s theme being a small town TV station performing a newscast. It featured a dance with the Little Miss Henning contestants with umbrellas and rain boats, while the older contestants had some fun in the sun with their dance.

One of my favorite parts of the pageant was the reigning Little Miss Henning royalty performing commercials for some of the businesses in the greater Henning area. It was fun watching the girls read through the commercial with a little twirl at the end of each skit. It really broke up the program and was a great way to showcase some of the things that Henning has to offer for a number of guests to our community.

Of course I may be a bit bias over my enjoyment of the skits as the Citizen’s Advocate was highlighted as one of the commercials in the program, but none-the-less it was an entertaining way to spend a Friday night. 

Thanks to everyone who helped to make the Henning Festival a success this year. As I told Don Jorgenson as I walked through the car show on Sunday afternoon, I cannot believe how many cars showed up for the car show given the inclement weather and less-than-ideal forecast. It was a great ending to a fun weekend in the Henning area.