Even the weather seemed to cooperate this past weekend during the 38th annual Kent Cornucopia Days, blanketing the region with sunshine and warm temperatures through most of the festival and waiting all day Sunday before dousing the area with a little of the wet stuff.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rain held off until closing time,\u201d volunteer event director Bill Westcott said Monday. \u201cAlmost to the minute.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thousands of people descended on downtown Kent over the three days of the festival, visiting the more than 600 booths spread out across the downtown core and enjoying South King County\u2019s largest family festival.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverall it went very, very well,\u201d Westcott said.<\/p>\n
According to Westcott, this year\u2019s event started with a bang, with what appeared to be increased attendance on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had more people on Friday during the day than we normally do,\u201d he said adding that while the increase in attendance usually comes in the later evening hours, \u201cthat uptick came at 12 noon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Decent attendance continued through the weekend, even on Sunday when clouds threatened to put a damper on the festival. According to Westcott, several of the vendors told him Sunday was actually their best day, making more sales than on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cSunday, despite the weather, everyone was very happy and the crowds were good,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Westcott also said several people told him this year\u2019s event, especially the carnival, seemed safer than in previous years, due mainly to an increased police presence designed to tamp down out-of-town teens looking to potentially cause trouble.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just made a more inviting environment and the families came back in droves,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was just the presence (the police) provided.\u201d<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s event also featured the return of the festival\u2019s 5K fun run, which was canceled last year due to construction along the route.<\/p>\n
According to Kent Cultural Programs Coordinator Mark Hendrickson, 540 runners turned out for the event, including more than 150 walk-ups who registered to run on the day of the race.<\/p>\n
According to Hendrickson, the overall male winner this year was 17-year-old Casey Campbell, who finished the course in 16 minutes, 45 seconds. Anita Behrbaum, 44, finished first in the women\u2019s division with a time of 20:42.<\/p>\n
According to Hendrickson, this year\u2019s race also featured at least two runners in their 80s and a \u201csignificant representation\u201d from Weight Watchers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a really fun, fun event,\u201d he said, thanking Iron Mountain for the use of their parking lot during the race.<\/p>\n
On the other side of town, the competition on the water was just as tight at the annual dragon boat races, hosted by the Kent Dragon Boat Association.<\/p>\n
Racers from Portland, Ore., dominated the day finishing first in seven of the eight categories, with two teams taking home trophies in multiple categories.<\/p>\n
The Wasabi Kraken team won both the Junior division (ages 14-18) and the Mixed B division, with times of 2:07.43 and 2:06.90, respectively.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re a top team,\u201d said Patty Sikora, Director of the Kent Lions Dragon Boat Races.<\/p>\n
The Wasabi Power team also went home to Portland with first-place finishes in Women\u2019s senior (ages 45 and older) division and the Women\u2019s A division with times of 2:19.34 and 2:06.64, respectively.<\/p>\n
In the Mixed Senior division, the winner was Wasabi Grandmasters with a time of 2:07.80, while Survivor Sake of Seattle took the Women\u2019s Cancer Survivors division with a time of 2:28.81.<\/p>\n
Riptide, of Portland, finished top in the Women\u2019s B division with a time of 2:16.57 while Wasabi Burn of Portland posted the fastest time of the day, finishing in 1:59.06 to win the Mixed A division.<\/p>\n
Local teams and event hosts the Dragin\u2019 Tails failed to make the finals in their division, finishing with a best time of 2:16.95 while the Ladies of the Lake, a local women\u2019s team, posted times of 2:30.48 in the Women\u2019s B division and a 2:28.92 in the Women\u2019s Senior division.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe local teams, Kent especially, are improving every year,\u201d Sikora said.<\/p>\n
Sunday saw the annual parade through downtown, with Old Timer King and Queen Pete and Pat Curran presiding.<\/p>\n
This year, the Grand Trophy was awarded to the Super Steppers and Little Steppers while the President\u2019 Award went to Association De Charros\/Azteca\/Los Margaritas Group.<\/p>\n
For floats, the Queens Award (and the Crowd Pleaser) went to the Marysville Strawberry Festival, while the Princess Award was given to West Seattle HiYu and the Community Theme was won by Port Orchard Fathoms O Fun.<\/p>\n
The Daffodil float won awards for Best Floral and Best Animation and Des Moines took the Friendship Award while KUBE and Miss Cinderella Scholarship won Spirit Awards.<\/p>\n
In the band competition, Seattle All City took first while Northside Drum received the Spirit Award. In the Junior Drill category, first place went to the Little Steppers while Mahogany took home the spirit award.<\/p>\n
In the Senior Drill category, the Super Steppers won first place while the highlanders got the spirit award.<\/p>\n
Kent Elementary Stomp and Dance won the Junior Dance competition with Allegro getting the spirit award while Northwest Cheer and Dance Academy won the Senior Dance division with West Coast Country Heat taking home the spirit award.<\/p>\n
In the marching competitions, Emerald City Jewels won the Junior Marching division and VFW won the Senior Marching, with American College Martial Arts and Seattle Thunderbirds taking home the spirit awards.<\/p>\n
The Association De Charros won the Equestrian prize and Puget Sound Minis won the Motor division with the Kent Fire Department earning the spirit award.<\/p>\n
And finally, in the novelty division, Fast Pup Dog Training came in first with the Seafair Pirates taking home the spirit award.<\/p>\n
In all, Westcott called this year\u2019s Cornucopia Days event a success and said plans would begin immediately on next year\u2019s festival.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt does keep growing,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have a good city, a good volunteer base and whatever we\u2019re doing we\u2019re doing right because people keep coming.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Even the weather seemed to cooperate this past weekend during the 38th annual Kent Cornucopia Days, blanketing the region with sunshine and warm temperatures through most of the festival and waiting all day Sunday before dousing the area with a little of the wet stuff.
\n\u201cThe rain held off until closing time,\u201d volunteer event director Bill Westcott said Monday. \u201cAlmost to the minute.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":223,"featured_media":21968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-21967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21967"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/223"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21967"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=21967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}