A mild summer evening met agriculture enthusiasts who ventured out to the Echoes of the Past SummerFest opening day last Friday in Claypool. Families lounged in camping chairs along a hill and looked on as dozens of ag enthusiasts put their tractors to the test in a crowd-pleasing tractor pull.
"It's fun to watch people come together," said Thames Goon, president of the Echoes of the Past.
As he spoke, he surveyed the scene around him as parents watched their children roll each other around in tubes, trying to create a hamster wheel. Nearby, younger children were playing in a pit of corn, and still others were climbing a mountain of straw bales to slide down large, black tubes.
Community members lined up for tractor-churned ice cream, roamed through rows of tractors of every color, and children lined up to make their own jump ropes or lassoes.
"Family. That's the main thing," said Goon, when asked what SummerFest is all about. "How this started was in 2020, during Covid, they cancelled the county fair, and we decided we needed to do something for the community."
Members of the Echoes of the Past manned several different event stations, teaching youths about agriculture's his-tory. The tractor driving lessons were a big hit. Children were invited to climb aboard an antique tractor to man the wheel as club members gave instructions on how to go steer, speed up, slow down and stop.
SummerFest was held in Claypool over the first weekend in August, offering an array of activities including: tethered air balloon rides, live entertainment, tractor pulls, garden tractor pulls, a mystery 5K race, a tractor drive and more.