Bigger than Calf Show Days

**The town of Schleswig, which was established in 1899, will celebrate its 125th Anniversary in September.** Photo by Dan Mundt

“We’ve been planning for quite a few months, already,” said Shannon Cose, who is co-chair, with Jodi Bruhn, of the Schleswig 125th Anniversary Celebration. “We have multiple committees set up that are hard at work organizing everything from food, to the parade, to entertainment, the carnival and so much more. We started about six or eight months ago, and we’ve been meeting with a different committee every week.”

The Schleswig 125th Anniversary Celebration will take place on September 13, 14, and 15 which, as the second weekend after Labor Day, is the traditional weekend of Schleswig Calf Show Days.

“A lot of the things we normally do for Calf Show weekend will still be in place,” Cose said. “We didn’t want to miss out on Calf Show Days nostalgia for a lot of the people and families that are coming back for the weekend, but for the most part the focus will be celebrating the 125th for the town and doing some new events on a larger scale.”

She noted that the weekend of the event does not fall on the same weekend as the Tri City BBQ Fest this year.

“That should be a great selling point,” she said. “There will be plenty of fun stuff to go around for everybody.”

The event will kick off on the night of Friday, September 13.

“We have multiple bands lined up, but we haven’t done our official announcement of who they all are,” she said. “We’ll have a very large tent, and all the entertainment events will be on the stage underneath the tent.”

Contests with a German theme will take place on the stage.

“That’s kind of the overall theme for the weekend,” Cose said. “We’re encouraging people to come and participate and put on lederhosen, or go buy a dirndl, which is the German women’s dress attire, and just have fun with it. We’ve got some fun things planned that go along with the German theme.”

The event will feature a beer garden, a carnival and a parade.

“The church will do their nice chicken dinner, the school will have their food stand, and we will be bringing in other food vendors,” she said. “There will be an all-school reunion, as well.”

Schleswig’s history will be a central feature of the event.

“We plan to have something of a museum on display that goes though the history of the town over the last 125 years,” Cose said. “They’re working on bringing in some memorabilia and artifacts and things that are associated with Schleswig. We encourage anybody, if they think they have something that is rare or unique from the history of Schleswig, to get in touch with us to let us know if they’d be willing to let us borrow it for the weekend.”

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As preparations for the 125th weekend pick up steam, more volunteers will be needed.

A goal is to have enough volunteers so that each individual only has to work two hours over the three days of the event.

“Then everybody gets to enjoy the weekend,” she said. “We’re definitely going to be scouting out volunteers to help from Friday to Sunday.”

Cose noted that many individuals are already contributing lots of time to the event.

“We have such great people who are willing to be the head of different committees; it’s taking a village to put this together,” she said. “It’s going to take the support of the community and everybody’s help to get this accomplished.”

An online storefront on the Schleswig 125th Celebration Facebook page will sell merchandise for the event.

“You can order items beforehand – which will be great for those who won’t be able to be around for the weekend,” Cose said. “The online store will open and close multiple times so that way they can get that merchandise made and shipped off and then they can reopen it again.”

A website, at Schleswigia.com, will go live in a few weeks.

“As we get closer, it will have all the information anybody could need,” she said. “That and our Facebook page will be best ways to keep up to date on what’s happening and what we’ve got going on.”

Cose said the organizers are hoping for a big crowd at the 125th celebration.

“We’re going to have great entertainment and it will be fun to celebrate Schleswig,” she said. “We’re all happy to be part of it and we hope everyone feels the same way.”

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