Community to celebrate Kalona Days Saturday, June 19

By Molly Roberts
Posted 6/16/21

The Kalona Community will celebrate Kalona Days on Saturday, June 19 with many events and activities planned to highlight Kalona and everything the city has to offer.

“I’m so excited …

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Community to celebrate Kalona Days Saturday, June 19

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The Kalona Community will celebrate Kalona Days on Saturday, June 19 with many events and activities planned to highlight Kalona and everything the city has to offer.

“I’m so excited for the feeling of community camaraderie that we missed out on last year,” said Kalona Days co-chairperson Olivia Kahler. “Our theme is community heroes. We want to recognize all the superheroes in the last year, from educators to healthcare workers to anyone who had to suddenly become flexible in the way that they do business. They are heroes in our eyes.”

Festivities will start at 7 a.m. with a Fun Run scheduled between 7-7:40 a.m., followed by a 1-mile race at 7:40 and a 5k race at 8 a.m.

From 9 a.m. until noon, the Kalona Farmers Market will take its place downtown, with vendors selling everything from hamburgers and frozen beef, to handmade soaps, to local produce, to jewelry and crafts. The farmers market’s first date of the year was Saturday, June 6 and the market will continue every Saturday through the summer.

At 1 p.m. at the Kalona Public Library, Larry TeBockhorst will give a reading from his newest novel, “Undermined in Laredo,” which tells the story of a high school graduate named Anna who heads to the Rio Grande region of Texas to nanny for the Falcone family. Anna leaves behind her Iowa life and family, only to discover that she may have made the biggest mistake of her life, becoming woven into a criminal network. “Undermined in Laredo was published in November 2020.

“When Larry released his book, he wanted to do a signing somewhere, but everything was shut down at the time,” said Kahler, who is also the Director of Youth Services at the Kalona Public Library. “He had people asking him for signed copies and he thought it would be nice if we could put them all in one place and sign them all at once. It was his idea, and he came to the library, and we were really excited for one of our local authors from our local authors shelf to actually come here and read and be seen.”

The parade will start at 4 p.m., running from the top of C Avenue at Highway 1 and traveling all the way down to the Sales Barn.

“The presentation of colors will happen at the corner of 6th Street and C Avenue in front of the Veterans’ Memorial at City Hall. The band will stop and play the national anthem and the colors will be presented there,” Kahler said.

From 5-9 p.m., there will be kid’s games, food vendors, bouncy houses and pony rides in the KCTC parking lot. Kids will also have the chance to register to win one of six bikes given away in a raffle. Children should register after the parade and must be present, along with their parent, to win.

At 5 p.m., the Grand Marshall, representatives from Civco will give the Grand Marshall speech. Civco is celebrating its 40th anniversary as a medical solutions company this year, and has also sponsored the live music to be enjoyed during Kalona Days.

At 5:15 p.m., the Mid-Prairie Alumni Association will present Community Awards.

Finally, at 8 p.m., Aces and Eights will perform a live concert. Aces and Eights have released many studio albums, including “Badass Southern Rock,” “The Heart of Country Music,” and “A Different Animal…”.

See page 10A for a complete schedule of events planned for the 2021 Kalona Days.