The 98th Annual Enfield Mule Days begins this Thursday (October 3) and runs through Saturday (October 5). The theme for this year’s Mule Days is “Welcome To MARVEL-ous Mule Days.” Karen Weiss and Ronnie York were guests on Monday’s open line program and Karen explained how the theme came about…
“Picking a theme is always kind of hard because when you have a group of people sitting around throwing out ideas, we normally try to go with something that is popular at the time and this time, because we pick our theme back in Febuary. At that point in time, Marvel Comics was big with End Game with Captain America and Ironman. You also have to think when you pick a theme how hard it will be to do a pet parade, costumes and the parade itself and floats and so that comes into play and we thought that would be great because you know you have a lot of characters and people and kids can dress up. That was how the theme came about with ‘Have a Marvel-ous Mule Day."”
Though it is not on the official schedule, Weiss says there will be a superhero costume contest following the Pet Parade Saturday morning. All ages are welcome to participate in the contest. Even Ronnie the Mule, the Mule Days mascot will be decked out in a superhero costume complete with a cape.
York and Weiss explained how Mule Days got it’s name…
“My understanding is they used to have a day people would come and they traded mules in Enfield. That’s where it got started from what I understand,” said York.
“People would come to town and sell their goods, agriculture and mules. It was just a day when people came to town and bartered and traded and mules was one of them,” added Weiss.
Things will get underway on Thursday. Karen Weiss set the scene for what folks can expect …
“We usually start off with a Gospel Sing. This year the Peyton Sisters, who are pretty popular in this area are going to be singing for us. They will start off about 6 o’clock on the main stage and they will sing for about an hour. We always have a good attendance and it’s always been one of the crowd favorites. We do have some of the stands open. We always like to start it off with that. Following that we have our Baby Contest and our Mr. and Miss Tot and then our Prince and Princess contest. We tried this year to consolidate and put them all together so we can have a night for that. Then we have our Bingo, which that’s kind of what Mule Days has become. A lot of people know Mule Days because we play Bingo. We get a license for this time of year. That’s our main fundraiser to keep our festival going.”
Ronnie York and Karen Weiss talked about Friday’s schedule…
“NCOE stage band is going to perform for 30 minutes or so. They’re followed up by The Appetizers,” stated York.
“After that we have the Little Miss Mule Day contest and unfortunately we didn’t have enough contestants to do a Queen Contest. And then after that, we have the Old School Band from the Ridgway/Gallatin County area. They’re going to be coming up and playing for us for a couple of hours. Then we have Bingo again at 8 o’clock,” said Weiss.
Saturday’s festivities will begin with the Mule Day 5K. Registration opens at 7:30 am at the stage with the race set to begin at 8:00 am. Proceeds from the race will benefit NCOE Pep Club. York and Weiss went on to explain the rest of Saturday’s line-up…
“After that, we’ll set up and get ready for the Pet Parade. We’ll have the line-up and the judging at the school parking lot. That’s usually where everyone congregates. We’ll have the Pet Parade at 10. Right after that we will have our cake walk which is usually a fundraiser for the PTO or the band. This year it’s the grade school band. Then we will have Mule Judging at the WADI building, in their parking lot. We’ll start the parade about 1:30. Our Parade Marshall this year is Donna DeLong. After the parade we will have our Cornhole Tournament, that’s usually held up next to the stage in the grassy area,” explained Weiss.
“It’s got a $20 entry fee. The top two teams will get prize money from the entry fees. Most of the entry fee money goes back to the top two teams,” added York.
“And then we have three sessions of Bingo, 3:30, 6:00, and 8:00. From 4:00 – 8:00 pm, Jackson Junction. I think they still go around and tour. They’re a good band. They’ve been around a long time. They have a good sound. LaDonna Dolan who used to play with them is going to come back and do a set with them.”
It takes a team of both a core group of 10 to 12 members plus a lot of volunteers to make the three day festival a success.
Mule Days gets underway this Thursday (October 3) at 6:00 pm and will run through Saturday night (October 5).
