With Not Much Help From Mother Nature, Harvest Fest Still a Great Success

Boy, did it rain! Rained on the fireworks, rained on the Kids Zone, rained on the beautiful apples and pears from the Hood River Valley. But still, people came from all over the region to enjoy the 25th Anniversary Harvest Fest. Thank you to all of you sturdy folks for making our big event such a big success! When the weather did finally dry out on Sunday, the number of people through our gates where nearly twice that of last year's final day! Makes you think how many records we would have smashed if ol' Mister Sunshine had shown his face on Friday and Saturday!

Speaking of Friday.... how about them fireworks??? Great job to all the pyros at the Hood River Eyeopeners Lions Club and especially Russ Paddock for putting on such a great show.

Thanks also to Mike Doke, our entertainment arranger extraordinaire. Once again he put it out of the park with a line up of terrific entertainment all weekend long. Kept us all singin' in the rain...

Thanks to all of our terrific sponsors -- their generous support brought new attractions to the festival and gave us all that we needed to promote the event in markets that we had never been able to reach before and also to promote it much more heavily in both print and broadcast media.

Thank you Pacific Power, The Fruit Company, Mount Hood Meadows Ski Resort, Tim's Cascade Snacks (great chips!), Griffith Motors, Hood River Ford Mercury, Hood River Chrysler Dodge Jeep, Columbia Center for the Arts, Columbia River Bank, Embarq, Your Rental and Party Center, the Hood River Heights Business Association, Tony White Farmers Insurance, and Shortt Supply.

Commemorative T-shirts are still available at the low, low price of $12.00 -- they are beautiful and feature the original art work of local artist Mark Nilsson. Call 541-386-2000 to get yours today!

Thanks to all of our amazing volunteers who came from far and wide to help out! You guys rock! Thank you also to all of our vendors, the main attraction -- so many talented, creative people in one place is really a sight to see. Great job!

We hope to announce the location of the 2008 Hood River Valley Harvest Fest by mid-January or much sooner so stay tuned!