Anniversary edition of annual festival packed with activities

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For those who were alive in 1976, it might not seem possible that the Haynes-Apperson Festival is 50 years old. Long memories and strong nostalgia tend to warp one’s perception of time, after all.

“It seems like just yesterday …” is a turn of phrase that surely is being recited as the festival returns June 18-20 to downtown Kokomo. And this year’s festival is sure to generate those core memories in young kids today they’ll recall at the festival’s 100th anniversary in 2076.

Lead organizer Paul Wyman is familiar with how time flies, as this is his 23rd time to present the festival. He knows everyone has something to look forward to in the line-up, which actually started on June 13, nearly a week before Foster Park is filled with the sounds and lights of the festival.

The Haynes-Apperson Sports Festival kicks off this year’s celebration with a golf tournament, which started on June 13 and runs through June 20 at Chippendale Golf Course. There is also a miniature golf tournament running from Tue., June 16, through Sat., June 20, at Kokomo Little Links in Cutler Park. Registration is still open for that event.

There will be a Haynes-Apperson canoe trip down the Wildcat Creek on Fri., June 19. And the annual 5K takes place Sat., June 20, at 8 a.m. in front of the Kokomo Family YMCA. There will be a Youth Tennis Super Set tournament on June 20 as well, taking place at the Kokomo High School tennis courts, and a kids track meet the same day on the Kokomo High School track.

Finally, the Haynes-Apperson Festival has added a huge pickleball tournament on Sat., June 27, in Bon Air Park. Details on all of these events, including registration links and costs, are available at www.haynesappersonfestival.org.

“Dana Neer has run the sports festival for many years,” said Wyman. “How he magically coordinates every one of those events is just awesome. Really, it is our volunteers who make the festival happen.

“We have a group of about 10 people who work year in and year out to get things prepared, but when it comes festival time, it takes pretty close to 100 people over three days to make the festival happen. I just can’t thank our volunteers enough!”

If the Haynes-Apperson Festival was just concerts, rides, food, fireworks, and a parade, that would be plenty. But there is so much more, thanks to those volunteers. For instance, the 50th iteration of the Haynes Apperson will see the return of the Haynes-Apperson Pageant. The competition takes place Wed., June 17, so that the newly crowned queen can join in the festivities across the weekend. The competition field was set on June 1, and the pageant will take place in downtown.

But at the center of the entire festival is the automotive heritage that offers the name to the festival. The cars will be central to the celebration once again this year, Wyman explained.

“Dave White, our car show organizer, passed away this year,” said Wyman. “We’re going to honor him and celebrate him this year. People have stepped up to make sure that the cruise-ins and the car show all happen. When you’re trying to replace someone like Dave, you realize how much we’ll miss him and what all he did.

“Dave was fantastic, and our car show and cruise-ins will honor him. We’ll also honor him in the parade.”

The cruise-ins will take place on Superior Street in front of Foster Park on Thursday and Friday, and the big car show will take place on Saturday. And as has been tradition from the start 50 years ago, a commemorative run of a Haynes automobile along the Pumpkin Vine Pike route will take place on Thursday. Cars will start lining up at 4 p.m. at 2064 S. Goyer Road.

More than a few people have noticed that this year’s festival isn’t nestled next to the Fourth of July. Most years, the two coincide nicely. This isn’t one of those years. The nation’s 250th birthday surely played a part in the date change.

In fact, logistics have more to do with it than most may realize. Booking the rides, the bands, and the food vendors required a ballet that landed the Haynes-Apperson a couple weeks early this year.

“With bigger ride companies, you lose out to the county fairs, state fairs,” said Wyman. “You’re not going to move them off those big contracts. We were able to secure a great ride company on these dates. Then, the musical entertainment we line up is a matter of who’s available when.

“In order to put together three days’ worth of great music, we looked at all the weekends in June through July 4. The availability of bands was low. With the 250th celebration, a lot of bands had been booked four or five years out. We can’t do that.”

Wyman explained that the bands that appear each year at the festival are more a matter of which acts are passing through Indiana, from Chicago, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, or even Louisville. These “routing” windows make it possible for a small city such as Kokomo to book recognizable talent at an affordable price.

“When you look at our musical entertainment this weekend, it’s pretty strong,” said Wyman.

And festival organizers have to find food vendors with availability that matches up with the rides and music.

“We always want to make sure we have the best food vendors,” said Wyman. “We have folks coming to provide the quality fair food that people expect, and every year we compete for them. We compete against Carmel Fest and any type of fair that that’s going on in the region.”

The juggling act always seems to find success, and this year is no different. It just means the Haynes-Apperson will take place a couple weeks earlier than normal. But more times than not, the festival occupies the last week in June rather than the first week in July.

“It just seemed like the best weekend for us to be able to put on the Haynes-Apperson’s 50th anniversary and not feel like we were missing something or had to cut back somewhere,” said Wyman.

An added wrinkle to this year’s celebration is that it was moved to the weekend reserved for Juneteenth. While the double-booking of downtown could have caused a conflict, Wyman said the two events have found a synergy.

“I am excited about the opportunity to partner with Juneteenth,” said Wyman. “When we met with them about the possibility and started seeing some things lining up for us, they were like, ‘Wow, this could be really powerful for us all.’”

The Haynes-Apperson will remain in Foster Park, while Juneteenth will occupy the courthouse square. And when the festival parade comes through downtown on June 20, those in attendance will have an opportunity to explore what Juneteenth has to offer.

“There will be thousands of people downtown for the parade, and hopefully they’ll hang out at Juneteenth and help them grow their festival a little bit as well,” said Wyman.

The festival begins Thursday, June 18, with rides, food, cars, sports, and more. Whiskey Records will open the concert stage at 6:30 p.m., and LoCash will headline the event at 8:30 p.m. All concerts at the Haynes-Apperson are free, but there are VIP seats at the front of the stage available for $25 each.

“Don’t wait until last day to get your tickets,” said Wyman. “They are available now. The beauty of the VIP ticket is you don’t have to carry a chair into the park. You show up, and there’s a chair already waiting on you right up close to the stage.

“If you’re thinking about having video or pictures of some of these awesome bands, there’s just no better place to get it from than the VIP section.”

Friday, June 19, brings Asia and Foghat to the stage in Foster Park, with Rogers Ritual Band opening at 6 p.m. Asia follows at 7:30 p.m., and Foghat headlines at 8:45 p.m. The Saturday, June 20, lineup starts with Hence the Hero at 6:30 p.m., followed by Kool and the Gang at 8:30 p.m.

“The thing I’m most fired up about on Saturday night is Kool and the Gang,” said Wyman. “The festival has always been about celebrating all that’s great about Kokomo and Howard County. So, here we are, having a celebration of everything that’s great about our community, and the last song we’re probably going to sing that night is ‘Celebration,’ one of the most well-known hits ever written in our country.

“Everybody will be singing along, and then we’ll shoot off a huge fireworks show. That is going to be a fun moment!”

But none of it happens without a full year of fundraising and planning. The Haynes-Apperson Festival isn’t exactly cheap. The organizers begin looking for dollars almost as soon as the last firework explodes to end the current festival.

“That’s probably one of the most difficult things,” said Wyman. “We’ve had some people really step up this year to make sure we have great entertainment these three days. Had they not, I don’t know if we’d have three nights of bands.

“When we stepped in to restart the festival in 2003, the mayor and city council at that time felt it was reasonable for the city to cover the cost of the fireworks, and they’ve honored that every year. The rest of the festival, we are out there fundraising. The amount of money that we have to raise is obscene.”

The parade takes place Sat., June 20, beginning at 2 p.m. The route starts at the intersection of Market and Taylor streets and heads north to Jefferson Street. The procession will head west along Jefferson until reaching Main Street and then march south down Main Street to the courthouse square.

This year’s grand marshal will be the Carver Community Center, and there are still spots available for those who want to join the parade. Applications are available at www.haynesappersonfestival.org.