If Labor Day marks the end of summer, Mother Nature saved her best for last.
As crowds swarmed Winchester’s Main Street for the Daniel Boone Pioneer Festival and the Labor Day Parade, the mercury rose to nearly triple digits Saturday, and a short but surly morning storm caused havoc for vendors.
One artist, Ken Howard, said he lost hundreds of dollars worth of pottery when a gust blew over one of his displays.
Still, the weather didn’t keep many folks away.
From 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, visitors walked Main Street from Boone Avenue to Washington, and part of Washington Street was closed, too, for Labor Day weekend festivities at Heritage Park.
Then on Monday, the high side of Main was packed with spectators for the Labor Day Parade, which featured three marching bands, pageant contestants including McKenzie Davenport, who was crowned Labor Day Queen just before the parade, and floats, as well as shining vintage vehicles and rumbling motorcycles.
Elizabeth Chalfant, a volunteer for the Pioneer Festival, said there were about 150 vendors this year. Besides those selling arts and crafts out of tents, there were also food trucks and grills, cold refreshments, and information tables for nonprofits.
A weekend of live music began Friday night with a street dance where the Jimmy Buffett cover band Conch Republic provided the tunes.
There were vendors and visitors from as far away as Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, and Western Kentucky. Some of the out-of-towners, Chalfant said, were former Clark Countians who return home each year at this time to see family and friends.
“They plan their vacations and come to the festival,” she said.
The Henches, who now live in Northern Kentucky, were among those for whom it was a homecoming.
Lacee Hench, her husband, Carter, and their son, Reed, had come for the George Rogers Clark High School cheer team’s Walk With Friends. Lacee’s brother, Coltin Duncan, who has cancer, was this year’s beneficiary.
After the walk, they stayed for the festival. They didn’t seem to mind the heat and humidity.
“It’s perfect!” Lacee said. “It’s nice to be out on a beautiful day.”
She also thought it was great to come back and see how downtown had improved. Austina Bruton, who came with Ebony Hill, reflected those thoughts.
“It’s fun,” she said. “The face of downtown has changed. It looks so nice.”
The women said they were visiting some of the shops as well as the street vendors.
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Chalfant said that one of the reasons the Pioneer Festival moved downtown several years ago from College Park was to bring in more visitors for downtown merchants. Since then, the festival has grown to the point where the park could no longer accommodate it.
Besides marking the end of summer, Labor Day is also the big kickoff of the fall campaign season. At both the Pioneer Festival and the Labor Day Parade, politicians were plentiful — and polite.
State Sen. Greg Elkins, a Clark County Republican, visited the local Democrats’ tent, where he explained his constitutional amendment to limit the governor’s pardon authority to Chelsea Kirk, the Democratic candidate for state representative, and Ronni Tallent, the county chair.
Later, Kirk made her way down to the Republicans’ tent, where one of the pols she met was her election opponent, Daniel Konstantopoulos, and they had a pleasant visit.
“There’s no reason not to be friendly,” she said.
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