ORIGINALLY WRITTEN BRENDA CONYERS
If you are looking for something fun and different, Marion County is the place to be this weekend.
Hillsboro is having their Art & Crafts fair, Marion is having their Art in the Park, and Peabody is having their Antique Show all on the same day.
Art and crafts in Marion
This will be Marion’s 22nd Annual Art in the Park and Craft Show. Organizers are expecting 250 vendors from all over the country.
Artists and craftsmen will display their wares from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Central Park.
According to Margo Yates, executive secretary for the Marion Chamber of Commerce, “We have vendors coming from 11 different states from Maine to North Carolina.”
This year’s fair will see a significant increase in the number of vendors from last year. Yates explained sales were down last year for vendors at their other show, so they weren’t moving around a lot.
“This year,” she said, “is the first time I have ever had a vendor who asked if they could come and standby to see if there was a cancellation. They are coming from Joplin, Missouri.”
Yates said several new crafts will be exhibited, including yard art, a vendor offering barnwood frames with pictures of Kansas from the 1800s, and a vendor who specializes in antler art.
At least 12 food booths will be available with such items as brisket sandwiches, funnel cakes, breakfast burritos, taco pockets, a baked potato bar, and much much more.
“We try to keep the food booths limited to local people,” Yates said. “This is the biggest fund-raiser for some of our church groups and other organizations and we want to keep it local as long as the local people can keep up with the crowd.”
School organizations also benefit, including the Marion High School boosters who start in the early morning hours to make fresh bierocks.
Yates encourages attendees to register to win one of 10 $20 gift certificates to be given away at 4 p.m. These certificates are courtesy of the Marion Chamber of Commerce Art in the Park Committee, and may be used at any booth before the close of the show.
Ann Zimmerman will perform at the Central Park Gazebo at 11 a.m. and again at 3 p.m. Zimmerman is a Kansas singer-songwriter who blends old and new folk songs, cabaret numbers, and her own creations to examine the adventure, joy, tragedy and comedy of life on the Kansas plains.
Zimmerman grew up in Salina, and has been an elementary teacher, a bank clerk, a plumbing catalog editor, an agricultural intern, a student and graduate of Harvard law school, president of a Kansas environmental organization and a long-time legal aid attorney.
She now lives on a horse farm near Salina and divides her time between legal work and music.
Live music will be available throughout the day, courtesy of the Tim Janis Ensemble from Sanford, Maine.
Parking will not be a problem, Yates said, “There will be a free shuttle bus service departing every 10 minutes from parking lots located at Marion Die and Fixture on West Main, and the Marion Baseball Complex on Eisenhower Drive.”
She said volunteers are critical to the success of the fair.
“Our Boy Scouts help load and unload the vendors, and we use lots and lots of other people who help direct people and traffic,” she said. “And there’s always room for more.
“It really is the most fun day of the year, and a great time to showcase our community,” Yates said.
Antiques at Peabody
Peabody will be having their fourth annual antique show, and it will be the last day for the Doyle Valley Farmers’ Market.
The antique show will be 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the Marshall Auction Building.
According to Marilyn Jones, who has helped to coordinate this years event, “The original idea was to encourage people to come and spend the day in Marion County.”
Jones said this year’s show has fewer vendors than in the past, however, the original organizer had been in ill health this spring.
“It isn’t anyone’s fault,” said Jones. “It was just a whole set of circumstances. But we got together and did the best we can. It may be small, but is is respectable.”
Marilyn, her husband, Gary, and Marilyn Payne, who owns Tumbleweed Antiques, were organizers for this year’s show.
Jones said a highlight of the show will be a long-time dealer from Ellinwood who will be available from 3-5 p.m. to appraise items brought to him.
He will do one item free of charge for those who purchased a ticket to the show.
The women of the Peabody Baptist Church will have cinnamon rolls and coffee available during the morning, and hamburger, hot dogs and cool drinks for the afternoon.
The Peabody Township Library board will have a drawing for a hand crocheted afghan. Tickets will be available for $1 or 6 tickets for $5.
This will also be the final day for the Doyle Valley Farmer’s Market. Jones explained the current hot dry weather has slowed the market .
Jones also pointed out Peabody’s entire downtown is listed on the National Registry and how proud the community is of that fact.
“We hope, in time,” she said, “to bring in fruit to make the season last longer.”
FFA members will be helping to set up tables for the church and the antique show.
“We are looking for new venders for next year,” she said, “we want to make the show bigger and better.”
To promote their events, the cities of Marion and Peabody went in together to put up a billboard along U.S. 50 at Walton where about 4,500 people see it every day, according to traffic estimates.
