By Robert Tomlinson
News Director
THREE RIVERS — Three Rivers’ kickoff to summer is just around the corner.
The 66th Three Rivers Water Festival will kick off Thursday, June 15 and go through Saturday, June 17, with both new and returning events filling up the festival schedule.
“I’m very happy that we have been able to carry the tradition on and have a festival that highlights our town and its people and its businesses, and that we have the 66 years of rich history that goes along with the festival as well,” Three Rivers Area Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Christy Trammell said. “Certainly, things have changed over the years, but we still feel this is a very good festival that will again be a nice highlight for the community.”
This year’s theme for the Water Festival is “Three Rivers Goes Tropical,” with a few of the events, including the annual parade and the musical guests, taking advantage of the overall theme.
Thursday’s schedule kicks off the festival with the street parade beginning at 7 p.m., following the traditional parade route from West Michigan Ave up North Main Street. Trammell said it’ll feature almost 80 entries, including the Three Rivers High School Marching Band and the Northern Lights Homeschool Marching Band, and will be grand-marshaled by the TRHS boys’ tennis team, which made the state finals for the first time in 30 years.
“We wanted to highlight their accomplishment. It’s the first time in 30 years since we got to that level for the team, so it’s certainly something to celebrate,” Trammell said.
Also on Thursday will be the opening of the carnival midway, run by Anderson Midways, which will open up at 4 p.m. The midway will be in operation all three days of the festival, with Friday hours beginning at noon and Saturday hours beginning at 11 a.m. The midway will feature plenty of rides, food and games in the city’s west parking lot.
Trammell said ride wristbands for the midway are still available at a discounted price of $20 through Wednesday, June 14, and can be purchased at Harding’s or the Three Rivers Area Chamber of Commerce. Otherwise, wristbands and tickets can be purchased at the midway.
On Friday, June 16, one of the two brand-new events to the Water Festival will take place. Downtown Three Rivers will host a Cornhole tournament beginning at 5 p.m. on Main Street, with the roadway being shut down between West Michigan Avenue and Portage Avenue to accommodate the event. The tournament will be run by the Chamber of Commerce’s Ambassador team.
Trammell said a Cornhole event was a highly-requested event by festivalgoers, and is excited to be able to bring it to the festival for the first time and do so in the downtown area.
“We’ve had people ask us for a couple years now, since cornhole has become more popular, and have asked us to implement it,” Trammell said. “We’ll do that in downtown Three Rivers, which we thought would be a nice benefit for the restaurants located right downtown, because it’ll encourage the competitors and spectators to go into the establishments, and then with the social district, they can bring any food and beverages out on the street.”
The tournament will have up to 32 teams of two, and participants can still register on the Chamber’s website, trchamber.com, through their events calendar as a team or as an individual. Individuals will be paired up with other individuals to form a team. Registration as an individual is $25 and team registration costs $35.
A cornhole board set will be the grand prize for the tournament, and a $100 Meijer gift card will go to the team in second place.
As the Cornhole tournament is going on, the Three Rivers Woman’s Club will hold a new event, a live, in-person pie auction at 42 N. Main St. It is a departure from the pie sale the club usually does during the festival, due to what the club said is the difficulty in producing the volume of pies that are needed every year for the event. However, the auction is still looking to raise $5,000 for the Woman’s Club’s scholarships for Three Rivers High School students. Registration begins at 5 p.m., with bidding beginning at 6 p.m.
On Saturday, June 17, a number of new and returning events to the schedule will take place, starting bright and early with the Three Rivers Fire Department’s pancake breakfast fundraiser, back after a COVID-induced hiatus. The breakfast runs from 7-10:30 a.m. at the fire department on West Michigan Avenue. The Classic Car, Truck and Motorcycle show will also take place again, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in downtown Three Rivers. At the same time, the Hope United 5K/One-Mile Fun Run will take place behind the fire station.
Returning on the Saturday for the first time since 2019 will be the Three Rivers Lions Club’s Turtle Derby competition, taking place at the club’s Service Center at 420 Sixth Ave., with check-in beginning at 8:30 a.m. and races beginning at 9:30 a.m. The Derby’s return comes after a fire in February 2020 at the Lions’ garage destroyed the Turtle Derby equipment, forcing the club to rebuild it. Following that were delays in the Derby’s return due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Children aged 1 to 12 years old are allowed to participate in the derby, with the entry fee being $5 per child or per heat. A prize will be awarded to each heat winner, with the 10 heat winners go on to a final race at noon, where the winner gets gift cards to local merchants of up to $150.
Elsewhere on Saturday, a new event will be taking place at the Scidmore Park pavilion: A Pinewood Derby race competition. A partnership of Century 21 and New Hope Assembly, the all-ages competition will have a youth division for ages 5-11, a teen division for ages 12-18 and an adult division for 19 years old and up. Car kits are available at Century 21 and New Hope Assembly, with completed cards needing to be dropped off by Friday, June 9 for inspection.
Trammell said the Pinewood Derby idea came about because of Century 21 looking to get more involved in the festival.
“Century 21 approached us and were looking for a way to get involved and to offer something to the community. We paired them with New Hope Assembly, who has a Pinewood Derby track and who have run internal events for many years, so now the two organizations are going to bring it for a community-wide event,” Trammell said.
Other events happening on Saturday include the free Kids Zone at Scidmore Park from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., the Bicycle Rodeo at the Elks Club at 603 W. Michigan Ave. from 10 a.m. to noon, and the Relay for Life Duck Race beginning at 2 p.m. down at Scidmore Park.
The evening will finish out with the Three Rivers High School Jazz Band taking to the Memory Isle Park main stage at 6 p.m., followed by the Gizzae Reggae/Soca/Calypso/Top 40 Band at 8 p.m., and then the fireworks finale at approximately 10:25 p.m.
This year’s fireworks display, Trammell said, will be handled by a new company, and will be synced to tropical-themed music, which she said will be a “truly unique” experience compared to past fireworks displays.
“This is something that you’ll typically see in big-city fireworks shows, ones that are synced to music. So to think that we could bring the big-city aspect to our small town, we really thought that’d be a cool factor,” Trammell said.
Some of the ongoing festivities happening on all three days of the festival include food vendors at festival sites, the Ambassadors for Christ Chicken and Ribs Barbecue at Memory Isle Park, the Lions Club Ox Roast at the Lions Club Service Center on Sixth Avenue, and monster truck rides at the city parking lot across from the midway. On Friday and Saturday, there will be an arts and crafts marketplace at Scidmore Park, and an open house exhibition at the St. Joseph County Historical Society at 34 N. Main St.
Overall, Trammell said she looks forward to this year’s event, which normally brings in 12,000 to 15,000 people per year to Three Rivers, and that it’s those people that make the festival unique every year.
“If we didn’t have the attendance and the participation, it really wouldn’t be a festival. It’s all because of the people who come out and support the festival in whatever aspect that makes the festival special,” Trammell said.
A full schedule of events can be found in today’s edition of the Commercial-News.
Robert Tomlinson can be reached at 279-7488 or robert@threeriversnews.com.