“Montana’s Biggest Weekend” ready to roll
By J.P. Plutt
Dillon Tribune staff
The hay is stacked, the kids have started school, footballs are in the air and fall is on the door step. For the folks in Beaverhead County and for friends and relatives from far and near that means Dillon's Labor Day celebration is on tap.
Montana's Biggest Weekend provides a traditional fair and rodeo weekend to signal the end of summer and a transition from shorts and t-shirts into long pants and jackets. Before that shift occurs, time stops for the three-day weekend, and citizens enjoy the western-style festival.
Beaverhead County Fair
Entries begin rolling in Wednesday, all with hopes of grand championship results. The fair gates open officially Thursday morning at 8 a.m. and close Sunday afternoon. Throughout the four-day run, visitors can take a step back in time. A walk through the various fair buildings will duplicate similar strolls of 50 years ago. Prize flowers and baked goods, fruits and leather projects and all other such entries will meet the critical stare of a judge's eye.
At the livestock pens hogs, steers, and sheep, along with rabbits, roosters and farm animals of all sorts, will be shown by young 4-H kids in the traditional white shirt, and dark pants and tie.
The financial future of these young producers will change Saturday afternoon at the sale barn when supporters bid up the prices on the hogs, sheep and steers. Traditionally, that payoff from a year's work is deposited in the 4-H member's college fund.
Craft Fair
The Beaverhead Chamber of Commerce hosts the Blue Ribbon Craft Fair on the Old Depot Lawn Sept. 5-7. The event features local, regional and national vendors runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Monday.
Carnival
The Mighty Thomas Brothers enter their fourth year as Dillon’s carnival, and the professionally run show brings a clean, upbeat atmosphere that has garnered a host of fans in the Dillon area.
The carnival, which will be open Sept. 3-6, is a big company traveling from a show in Miles City to another show at Salt Lake. Dillon fits into the travel plans to make it a win-win. Dillon can handle only a portion of the show, so this year the carnival will rotate rides into Dillon that weren't at the show last year.
Rodeo
The Dillon Jaycees will stage the 53rd edition of their PRCA rodeo. The highlight of Montana's Biggest Weekend, the show matches top stock from Wade Sankey against some of the best cowboys in the world. Each performance opens with a nontraditional PRCA event, the Reg Kesler Memorial Wild Horse Race. Action is nonstop through the bull riding finale.
Saturday's rodeo begins at 7:30 p.m., while the wild horses buck out of the chutes at 1:30 p.m. to kickoff the Sunday performance. From Wednesday on, tickets will be available at the Jaycee Building (683-5771) at the fairgrounds.
Concert
The Dillon Jaycee concert features country western talent, with The Lost Trailers opening for Josh Gracin. The two-act performance is staged at the rodeo arena and begins Sunday evening at 8 p.m. For ticket information, call 683-5771.
Fire Department Labor Day Breakfast
The Dillon Volunteer Fire Department will hold their annual breakfast Monday morning at the Fire Hall from 7 a.m. to noon. Whether you’re just heading home or just heading to the parade, stop by and support this worthwhile organization. The menu includes pancakes, eggs, sausage, milk, juice and coffee at $5 a person. Kids eight and under eat for free.
Parade
The weekend slows down Monday with the deliberate pace of the Jaycee Labor Day parade. The parade harkens back to days of old, with floats and horseback riders, novelty acts and candy for the kids. The theme is “Into the Future.” For more parade information, contact Wendy Horner (925-1089).
Night life
For the young and young at heart, Dillon's night life reaches a peak during Labor Day Weekend. Music, dancing and meeting old and new friends highlight the social activity in uptown Dillon.
Tragic accident in Dillon 30 years ago
By J.P. Plutt
Dillon Tribune staff
The Labor Day Parade tragedy in 1979 cost the life of Montana Air National Guard pilot Joel Rude. Fifteen other spectators were injured including Faye Patacini, 40, of Whitehall. Patacini, four months pregnant, was admitted to the burn center in Great Falls with burns over 40 percent of her body. Leo Barnette, a highway patrolman, was struck by debris and listed in stable condition at Barrett Hospital as were Sandra Rebich, 20, and Louise White, 60, both of Dillon.
The F-106 fighter plane piloted by Rude and another by Alfred Schultz, both of the 120th Fighter Interceptor Squadron out of Great Falls, were engaged in a fly over of the Dillon parade when the left wing of Rude’s plane clipped a grain elevator near the intersection of Montana Street and Helena Street. Rude died upon ejection. Businesses and homes within three blocks of the site were damaged.
The tragedy could have been much worse. The jets made two passes over Dillon. The first, going south and the second fatal pass going north. Had the plane been traveling south at the time of the accident, the plane would have landed amidst thousands of parade watchers. Secondly, the parade started 11 minutes late. Had the parade started on time, the area of the crash site would have been covered with parade participants but was instead empty.
Dillon Jaycees name four retired firemen as parade marshals
By J.P. Plutt
Dillon Tribune staff
The Dillon Jaycees have named Bill Walker, Parke Scott, Scott Marsh, and Kirk Bergeson as Grand Marshals of the 2009 Dillon Jaycee Labor Day Parade. The Jaycees chose to honor the four after their recent retirements from the Dillon Volunteer Fire Department. The four combined for 94 years service to the fire department.
“It’s a huge honor,” said Marsh on behalf of the group. “As somebody that has grown up in Dillon, I’ve always felt that those were the outstanding, top-of-the-line people. I’ve known a lot of them and they’ve all been wonderful, civic-minded people. So to be asked may be one of the biggest honors that Dillon can bestow upon somebody. We were just a small part of the fire department and everybody who went before us, we’re riding on their coattails. Our predecessors are the ones who built the fire department up to where it is today. We feel that we’re representing the current and all of the past fire department members.”
Making the honor even more special for Marsh is his respect for the work the Dillon Jaycees do for the community of Dillon. Marsh says the jobs he took as a young man prevented him from joining the service organization but that he has always been “proud to come from a community that has an organization such as the Jaycees.”
Bergeson agrees with Marsh’s assessment of the Jaycees, calling them a “marvelous organization,” noting that every project the group takes on they do a great job, despite their dwindling membership numbers.
On the anniversary of the jet crash tragedy in which fire departments from Dillon, Twin Bridges, Sheridan, Melrose and Wisdom, as well as the Forest Service’s fire retardant drops by helicopter, controlled the ensuing blaze within hours, both men were asked about the event. Neither Marsh nor Bergeson had yet joined the DVFD.
“I was standing at the Jaycee Park with my family,” recalled Bergeson. “We watched the jets go over to the south and then we watched them go over to the north. It was quite strange because there wasn’t a noise but there was this mushroom cloud that rose up into the air. The lady beside me said, ‘My goodness, they dropped a bomb.’”
Bergeson rushed to the grain elevator and asked if he could help in any way. Later he went to the family business, which was on Montana Street near the crash site and watched the responders through the window.
Marsh recalls the 1979 was the first he had ever missed up to that time. His wife had accepted a teaching position at Polaris and they were making their new home in the Grasshopper Valley. “So we didn’t come to Dillon that Labor Day and I’ll never forget, I turned on the evening news that night and I’m sure it was Roger Mudd and he said there was a plane crash in Dillon, Montana during the Labor Day Parade. All I could think was, ‘Oh my gosh, everybody is dead.’”
The next day he drove down Montana Street to see the damage and has a clear visual image of the jet engine sitting in the middle of the street, just down from Bergeson’s shop.
Bill Walker has been in the back country of Alaska packing moose hunters and could not be reached for comment. Scott could not be reached for comment. Marsh regrets he will be out of town on a vacation planned before he learned of the honor. Bergeson says he will have Parke’s wife Pam twist his arm to get him to ride the parade route with him. Bergeson intends to at least have pictures of the three other honorees with him as he enjoys the tour of Dillon as Grand Marshal of the Labor Day Parade.
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