After missing last year due to the global pandemic, the Missouri Day Festival is back and stronger than ever!
Thursday
The 36th Annual Event gets under way Thursday, with a soup supper in the basement of the First Baptist Church on Oklahoma Avenue. The eat-what-you-want, pay-what-you-want event will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. with all proceeds benefitting the Good Samaritan Fund of the Trenton Ministerial Alliance. The fund is used to provide utility assistance to Grundy County residents.
The opening ceremonies will be held in the sanctuary of the church with winners of the Missouri Day porch and yard-decorating contest, window-decorating contest and coloring contest to be announced. Prizes will be awarded to the winners of the contests, which had a theme of “What it Means to be a Missourian.”
The Trenton High School audition choir, Gold Rush, is also scheduled to perform.
Friday
The festival gets under way in earnest on Friday as vendors arrive in the Rock Barn area at 10 a.m. and will remain open until 7 p.m. There will be live blacksmith demonstrations in the festival flea market area during that time and the Grundy County Museum will have an exhibit “Celebrating Missouri’s Bicentennial” in the fine arts building in the southeast corner of the courtyard area. The Scrappy Quilters will open its quilt show at the Dorris Rider Art Gallery, located in the Frey Administrative Center on the campus of North Central Missouri College. The show will feature quilts made by members of the guild and will be open from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday; 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and noon to 3 p.m. on Sunday. Masks are required for entry and social distancing will be observed.
The Missouri Day Baby Show and Little Miss and Mister contest will be held in the pavilion show ring, with registration to begin at 5:30 p.m., followed by the show at 6 p.m. “Precious Pumpkins” is the contest theme. Children ages four and five can compete for the “Little Miss” and “Little Mister” titles. The winners will be featured in Saturday’s Missouri Day Festival Parade. The age divisions for the baby show are 0-3 months, 6 to 12 months, 12 to 24 months and 2-3 years. The entry fee is $5 per child and children are invited to dress in fall or Halloween-themed attire.
Saturday
In addition to the vendors and the exhibits already noted, the highlight of Saturday will be the parade, which will get under way at 8:30 a.m. at the intersection of Main Street and Crowder Road. At last check, there were 23 bands scheduled to march, in addition to the Trenton Golden Bulldog Marching Band. The indoor auxiliary competition will get under way at 10 a.m. in the Trenton High School gym, (Trenton High School will perform in exhibition at 12:50 p.m.) with the indoor drumline competition scheduled to begin at 1:50 p.m., again with THS performing in exhibition at 2:20 p.m. The field show competition, which will be held at C.F. Russell Stadium, will get under way at 2:45 p.m., with THS to perform in exhibition at 5 p.m. Awards are scheduled at the stadium at 6:45 p.m. There is no entry fee for spectators at any of the band festival events this year.
Bus tours of the historic Thompson House will be available from 1 to 4 p.m. with those wishing to visit the restored home asked to meet in the Crowder State Park parking lot off N.W. Dove Lane. From Trenton, go west on Highway 6 to Highway 146; travel north on Highway 146 to NW 52nd Avenue in Edinburg. Turn north (right) and follow the road to NW Dove Lane; then turn east (right) onto Dove Lane and follow it to the parking lot.
Two bands will be playing in Trenton on Saturday night, with “Silverado” providing music for a country dance at the North 65 Center from 7 to 10 p.m. “The Ghosted” will perform at the Elks Lodge from 7 p.m. to midnight.
Sunday
In addition to the quilt show, which will continue on Sunday, a car show will be held near the Elks Lodge from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
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