C.E.E.F Enchancement Group

Dew Days, formerly Rambling River Days, set for June 22-28 at the Dakota County Fairgrounds

by Andrew Miller
Thisweek Newspapers

Goodbye to Rambling River Days. Hello again to Dew Days.

Rambling River Days, the annual summer celebration in the city of Farmington,  is undergoing a major overhaul this year – reverting back to its old name of Dew Days and moving out to the Dakota County Fairgrounds.

Residents can expect a different feel to this year’s festival, which runs June 22-28. With the move to the fairgrounds, event organizers are looking to create a sort of “mini Dakota County Fair,” said Maribeth Vanderbeck, Dew Days 2009 chair.

The festival’s new digs will allow for a host of new events: motocross time trials, a scaled-back version of the county fair’s midway carnival, and booths for civic groups to hold fundraisers and local vendors to promote their goods and services.

PHOTO: Dew Days, the annual summer celebration in the city of Farmington, moves to the Dakota County Fairgrounds this year and boasts a host of new events. Old favorites such as the parade, Miss Farmington Pageant and Flavors of Farmington food expo are slated to return to this year’s event. File photo

The move from Schmitz-Maki Ice Arena, the hub of last year’s festival, out to the fairgrounds “just made sense,” Vanderbeck said. “We were trying to make a piece of land into a fairground. Now we have a fairground.”

Favorite events from past years – such as the Kiss the Pig contest, bed races, Flavors of Farmington food expo and the Miss Farmington Pageant – are slated to return to this year’s festival. Dance-pop cover-band Boogie Wonderland and country-western outfit Jug have already been booked to perform.

Other activities are still in the works: Organizers are looking to hold a volleyball tournament, paintball, and book other music acts.

Some of the changes to the festival were prompted by negative reactions to last year’s Rambling River Days celebration, said Dolly Newberg, the festival’s entertainment chair.

“We had huge attendance, but people were a little upset because we moved it to the ice arena from downtown,” she said. “It didn’t go over as well as we had hoped.”

There were also complaints from fest-goers about the $3 cost of buttons at Rambling River Days 2008. The festival “has always been a button event,” Newberg said, but last year fencing was added to demarcate the areas button-holders were allowed in.

“It’s amazing that the $3 button was the difference for some people to come in or not,” she said.

The switch back to the name Dew Days was a no-brainer, Newberg said.

Originally called Mountain Dew Days – the city at one time had the highest per capita consumption of the highly caffeinated soda pop in the country – the festival’s name was eventually shortened to just Dew Days.

In 2005, the festival became Rambling River Days as a nod to one of the city’s natural resources – the Vermillion River. But Farmington residents just didn’t seem to cotton to the new name.

“Even through that change, people still called it Dew Days,”  Newberg said. “Dew Days was short, simple, and everybody knows it as that.”

“When people say (the name of the festival) they say Dew Days,” Vanderbeck added. “The name Rambling River Days does not roll off the tongue.”

Pepsi, which makes Mountain Dew, at one time sponsored the festival, but this played no part in the name changes, Newberg said.

“This has nothing to do with any company or corporation,” she said.

Buttons will again be $3 this year; button-holders get admission to Dew Days and free parking at the fairgrounds. Some activities, like the motocross time trials and the music events, will have an additional fee.

The $3 buttons help cover the cost of Dew Days and, if there’s any profit, other events put on by CEEF, the nonprofit Castle Rock-Empire-Eureka-Farmington Enhancement Group. CEEF also hosts a community expo in January, the Halloween Walk and Support the Troops Haunted House in the fall, a community Christmas celebration and an Easter carnival.

Vanderbeck, who’s also  executive director of CEEF, underscored that Dew Days is not funded by the city of Farmington. The button fees and admission fees to other Dew Days events are what cover festival costs, she said.

“We don’t use taxpayer money for it,” she said. CEEF “is a bunch of people who want to make this work. If we make any money off Dew Days, that goes into the next event.”

Volunteers are needed to help plan and run Dew Days 2009. For information or to volunteer,  visit www.ceefeg.org and click on “Contact.”

A Web site for Dew Days 2009 is under construction and should be up and running in coming weeks at www.dewdays.com .

Andrew Miller is at av.thisweek@ecm-inc.com.

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