Food and Folk Festival grows in its second year
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 1 year, 2 months AGO
Leif Totusek and Freestyle Candela perform at the Soap Lake Food and Folk Festival Saturday.
JOEL MARTIN/COLUMBIA BASIN HERALD
Joel Martin has been with the Columbia Basin Herald for more than 25 years in a variety of roles and is the most-tenured employee in the building. Martin is a married father of eight and enjoys spending time with his children and his wife, Christina. He is passionate about the paper’s mission of informing the people of the Columbia Basin because he knows it is important to record the history of the communities the publication serves. | June 25, 2025 3:00 AM
SOAP LAKE — Last year, the sun blazed down on the Soap Lake Food and Folk Festival. This year the temperature was kinder, but Mother Nature still got in her little joke.
“Later in the day, it rained, and people got up and just scattered,” said organizer Ruthann Tobiason. “But there were a few who were prepared and had coats with hoods and stuff. (The rain) didn't last very long.”
The folks who came were treated to some really impressive music, Tobiason said.
“The Killdeer String Band from Ellensburg … That one was amazing,” she said. “I’d never heard them before. I’d listened to some cuts online, but in person they’re just amazing. Same with Ranger and the Rearrangers.”
High Desert Foxes, a local band, dropped its new single at a party at Cloudview Kitchen Friday evening, to a sizable audience.
“They ran out of room inside Cloudview,” Tobiason said. “So, people just sat on the sidewalk, 20 (people) or so. And then there were some people in their cars with their windows down because the music was amplified enough that you could hear it outside.”
A major draw was Valentin Lysenko, a bandura virtuoso based in Seattle. The bandura is a traditional instrument of Ukraine, shaped kind of like a lopsided lute with as many as 65 strings and with a sound similar to a harpsichord. It’s so much a staple of Ukrainian culture that the Soviet government tried to eradicate the instrument and its players, exiling or executing bandurists, according to the Center for World Music.
Soap Lake’s Ukrainian community came out in force to see Lysenko, Tobiason said.
“About 50 people showed up just for that,” she said. “They were serious; they brought their lawn chairs … It was clear who came to see him.”
Besides the music, there were activities around the park for all ages. There were craft vendors, food vendors, a beer garden operated by Mi Cocinita Mexican Bar and Grill, games for the youth and miniature horses for children to pet from Kindhearted Therapy.
This is the second year that the Friends of the Lower Grand Coulee has hosted the festival, and it was very much a team effort, according to a post on the FLGC’s social media. Twenty volunteers spent 290 hours setting up, managing and cleaning up, the post said.
Tobiason wasn’t sure how many people had come out but estimated 300-400, she thought. Visitors were asked to fill out a survey to let them know what worked and what didn’t and while most attendees didn’t, 84 of them did compared to about 30 last year.
“If that's an indicator of the percentage of people who attended, I feel pretty comfortable saying it was more than last year,” she said.
ARTICLES BY JOEL MARTIN
Quincy National Night Out scales down
QUINCY — Quincy’s National Night Out was more compact this year, which worked out well, said QPD Sgt. Joe Westby, who’s in charge of event planning for the Quincy Police Department. “National Night Out is a big event, and the fact that we’re able to shrink it up is like a breath of fresh air,” Westby said. “If you're always doing the same thing, it's kind of nice to switch things up and see how it works.” National Night Out took place Thursday on the block of C Street next to the police station, a shift from previous years when it was held at Lauzier Park. The smaller space meant fewer emergency vehicles for children to explore, but it also meant less walking for attendees. Grant County Fire District 5 brought a fire truck, and the Grant County Sheriff’s Office had a patrol boat. Renew, the Grant County behavioral health agency, had a booth and so did Quincy Partnership for Youth. Veterans Operation Creation sang the national anthem, and the Quincy Animal Shelter brought kittens that piled over each other making friends with passersby. As before, the QPD served grilled hot dogs.
Quincy Police retirements leave big shoes to fill
QUINCY — There are some big shoes to fill at the Quincy Police Department. “We’re losing 48 years of experience between them,” Quincy Police Chief Ryan Green said at the retirement party for Capt. Jorge Trujillo and Det. Damon Powell Thursday. Trujillo, who grew up in Sunnyside, has been with QPD for 19 years, he said, coming on as a patrol officer fresh out of the military. From there he served as a field training officer, a detective and finally captain. “I consider him my left-hand man,” Green said. “He runs the operations side of the house … He knows the agency very well, and he knows the community.” Trujillo has some projects around the house to tackle now that he’s retired, he said.
Big fun on a small scale
Wheat Land Communities’ Fair opens Thursday
RITZVILLE — The Wheat Land Communities’ Fair isn’t as big or as flashy as some of the county fairs around central Washington, but the folks who keep it going like it just the way it is. “It’s somewhere you can go and get an old-time traditional feeling, and you’re comfortable letting your kids roam the grounds and experience all that it has to offer,” said Board Member Lori Williams. “It’s more of a feeling than (one) specific thing,” The fair starts Thursday in Ritzville and runs through Sunday. Starting Friday, the 56th Ritzville Rodeo will take place alongside the fair at the rodeo grounds. This year the entertainment budget was expanded, Williams said, to be able to offer more fun that’s covered by the cost of admission. For the kids, there’s face painting, balloon art, Lego crafts, races, contests and games. Children can also ride on a little train towed around the fairgrounds behind a tractor.