Premier event on the horizon is the firemen's chicken BBQ on Friday at the city park
The Brooten Firemen's Chicken BBQ is a key event for Bonanza Valley Days; shown is the poster hanging at the city park along Highway 55.
(HD VIDEO) The BVD Kiddie Parade wraps up in this video on July 9, 2022.
Friday night update to share from the publisher: the DeeJay Sounds street dance, sponsored by the Bonanza Valley Voice, is still ON! The music should start playing by 9:30 p.m., at which point the rain is supposed to dissipate. We are receiving about a half inch of highly valuable rain! This is a good thing. At 9:38, DeeJay Sounds fired up the Friday night street dance. The Flavor Shack and Marcia's Bar and Grill are both serving a wide variety of food!! And the KaDe Shack is, of course, serving the finest spirits in western Stearns County!
**Announcement: the grand parade lineup will be posted in a separate web article on Saturday afternoon.
And back to original programming...
Bonanza Valley Days in Brooten is upon us! Running July 6, 7, 8 and 9 in Brooten. Additional updates on BVD are being posted to this web article and also to the publisher's blog, which you can see by clicking here: https://tinyurl.com/2p835fbm. The Voice will do its best to keep the public updated on everything going on in town throughout the next three days. This web article was extensively updated late Thursday night. **ALSO, video for the worship service, which lasted about 44 minutes, is posted at that editor's blog post.
The first Medallion hunt clue will be posted Monday, July 3 on the window of city hall. This is the only location that clues will be posted, but, of course, anyone is welcome to share that information as they are able to! UPDATE on Thursday night: the medallion was found! It was found by Nate Hagen of Brooten in Memorial Park. He found it on Thursday evening. THANK YOU to Heidi Kinzler, Morgan Knutson and Sylvia Knutson for their fine efforts of creating the 2023 BVD Medallion! Your efforts are greatly appreciated.
Worship in the park kick things off on Thursday, July 6; the worship starts at 7 p.m., and cookies and milk will be served afterwards.
On Friday, July 7...
While the youth baseball tournament is taking place at the city park and elementary diamonds, a very simple BVD Art in the Parkactivity will take place at 1 p.m. at the city park shelter. This year the Art in the Park will consist of a simple drawing and coloring activity that could be arranged into a mural. Kids will be encouraged to make a drawing (on an 8 1/2" by 11" piece of paper) on the "Proud and Free in 2023" BVD theme. They can be on display later that night during the chicken feed. A previously-planned Tie-Dye T-shirt factory, which is what took place last summer at BVD, was dropped when the newspaper's editor passed away the week she was set to order T-shirts. Jennifer Murphey, who ran a screen printing business, had extensive experience with T-shirts and Tie-Dye supplies...something the newspaper publisher does not. For Art in the Park in 2024, the Belgrade Library is exploring the idea of bringing Art-related projects to Brooten on Friday of BVD.
Also Friday! The LifeLink III helicopter is scheduled to arrive in Brooten during the firemen's chicken dinner on Friday between 5 and 7 p.m. if it's not on a call. **UPDATE: due to the threat of poor weather in central Minnesota, LifeLink III cancelled their visit to Brooten.
Also...the BVD Craft and Vendor show gets rolling on Friday, and as of July 6, organizers have a whopping 36 vendors coming to town!! This would be far and away an all-time record for BVD if three-quarters were able to make it.
Saturday...so many activities!
The Walk/Bike/Run, sponsored by the B-B-E wrestling club, is at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday starting at St. Donatus church. Registration starts at 8 a.m. Also starting at 8 a.m. will be the annual BVD Classic Car and Truck and Tractor show on main street and near Brooten Auto and Bonanza Valley State Bank.
The BVD Kiddie Parade, sponsored by Q102 radio and Bollig, Inc. of Willmar, starts at 10 a.m. from the Trinity Lutheran church parking lot. The theme is "Proud of Free in 2023" with the encouragement to utilize the colors red, white and blue. This year Q102 has pledged a new prize to be added to the mix, and that prize will be a surprise to be announced immediately following the kiddie parade. Last year's BVD Kiddie Parade featured 39 children, which is the most in this activity since at least 2015.
Saturday is full of activities, most of which are FREE! The city park (Friday 4 to 8 p.m.) and Saturday (during the day) will have a vendor show with roughly 40 booths! It may be the biggest BVD vendor show we've ever had.
Sunday! Still plenty to take in...
Don't forget the B-B-E Scouts BSA Troop No. 667 Dad's Belgian Waffle Feed on Sunday at the city park! Followed by the BVD grand parade at 1:30 p.m. that starts at the north end of Main Street near the train tracks. The 2023 Grand Marshals are RJ's Mini Mart owners Brandon and Ashley DeKok.
A separate web article will be added soon that outlines the generous food offerings in town over BVD.
A video from the BVD Kiddie Parade one year ago is featured in this web article.
Friday early evening update! the chicken BBQ supper got rolling before 4:30 p.m. as the fire department decided to let people start eating early. This has loosened up the usual bottleneck that they usually have by 5:30. The "line" has been very steady and very short! The weather is absolutely perfect. We are blessed here in Brooten.
And please share this! The dates for the 2024 Bonanza Valley Days celebration are July 11, 12, 13 and 14. This is the farthest away that BVD will be from the July 4 holiday, and then it begins its progression closer to July 4 year after year until it resets weekends again.
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