Beachcomber Festival

On the Saturday of the Waldport Beachcomber Festival, US101 and Oregon 34 close where they meet in town, and for an hour the highways belong to the parade. For the 2026 festival the Oregon Department of Transportation posted the closure for June 20 from noon to 1 p.m., in both directions on both roads, and told truckers to go around. The parade forms at Louis Southworth Park, the open ground in the middle of town that the city says was once Waldport’s High School and was renamed for Louis Southworth. Organizers asked spectators to bring lawn chairs and find a place along the route for the floats and music. The Boiler Bay Beacon describes crowds lining the streets for vintage cars and floats, and prints an old photograph of a convertible parked beside the Alsea Bay Bridge at an early Beachcomber.

Three days around the Moose Lodge

The 2026 festival, billed by the Waldport Chamber of Commerce as the 70th annual, ran June 19 to 21. It opened on Friday at 2:45 p.m. in front of City Hall, where Grand Marshal Donna McCrea read the proclamation. A children’s parade followed at 3 on the track at Southworth Park, and a Kids Zone with games opened beside what the Chamber calls the largest playground on the Oregon Coast. Buzz Kill played the Main Stage in front of the Moose Lodge from 5 to 7. At 7:30 the Community Presbyterian Church held a music ministry, free, with donations going to South Lincoln Resources. At 10 p.m. The Goonies played at the park. The festival told people to bring blankets, lawn chairs, and their own snacks, and admission was free.

Saturday began at 9 with a car show presented by 1st Security Bank and Skosh Restaurant, then a vendor faire in the Community Center parking lot at 10. At the same hour St. Anthony’s Catholic Church began serving free strawberry shortcake and kept serving until it ran out. After the parade the afternoon went to the Puddle Pirate Party bounce house and to the slug races, which ran from 1 to 6 with no registration. The festival’s May notice told racers to “bring your fastest slug or rent one.” From 1 to 10 p.m. the Moose Lodge kept a beer garden, with Weird Science, Strange Brew Band, and Typsy Chicks on the Main Stage. That evening the festival posted: “Come and watch the Fire Dancers Tonight!!!”

Sunday, June 21, was Father’s Day. It opened with a pancake breakfast at the Moose Lodge from 8:30 to 11, followed by Grey Wails on the Main Stage. From 1 to 3 came the Chuck Hill Memorial Bed Races in front of Cafe CHILL. Before the festival, organizers had asked townspeople for photographs of past bed races. Through the weekend the festival booth handed out a Business Crawl Passport Book, to be stamped at shops around town for a prize drawing. In the spring the committee had also posted a photograph of a band that played around town and at Beachcomber in the 1970s and asked who remembered them.

Seventy years and two committees

The count of years depends on who is counting. Oregon Coast Breaking News reported in June 2025 that the festival had been held in Waldport for 68 years, which made 2025 the 69th and 2026 the 70th. The Beacon reported in April 2026 that city officials disputed the former organizers’ claim to have run the event continuously for nearly 70 years. By the city’s account, that group was a 13-year-old nonprofit whose current board members had joined only around the COVID period.

The 2026 festival was the first under a new group of local volunteers, organized with the Chamber of Commerce. Its president, Pattie Deitrick, told the Beacon: “We want to keep the memories alive by carrying forward 70 years of tradition and bringing the nostalgia back.” The city directed residents and visitors to the new festival. “The citizens of Waldport deserve to have their traditions carried out by an upfront & responsible group,” a city official said. The former organization has gone by more than one name. Oregon Coast Breaking News reported in 2025 that it had legally renamed itself Lincoln County Beachcomber Days, so that no one would take Beachcombers for a city event. The Beacon gives the name as Lincoln County Beachcombers and says the group reportedly explored moving the event out of Waldport, including to the Port of Newport. The Beacon tried repeatedly to reach the old group for comment and received none by press time. In May 2026 the old group posted that the Waldport event had been cancelled. The new committee answered the same week that this was “NOT true” and that the festival would go on.

A grant, a budget, and a one-day festival

The quarrel began over money. KYAQ radio reported in September 2025 that the city had denied the Beachcomber Days nonprofit a grant. In denying it, city manager Dann Cutter accused TiAnne Rios, the nonprofit’s secretary, of stealing funds and of awarding her daughter a Beachcomber Days scholarship. KYAQ reported that the Lincoln County district attorney, the police, and the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz Indians had brought no charges, and its interviewer noted that nothing had been adjudicated.

Rios gave KYAQ her account. The group filed its sponsorship forms at the end of August. On October 1 the city asked for a budget. She sent a rough one while the treasurer was sick with COVID, and in it she had dropped a number from a column. “It’s obvious that it was a clerical error,” she said. The city then asked for the names of scholarship winners and timber show prize winners. She sent the initials of the scholarship winners, who were minors. On October 3 a letter came alleging IRS violations. Rios said the scholarships were awarded by an independent committee and that her daughter, 17 at the time, declined hers. The Beacon gives the city’s side: after reviewing conflicting budget documents and scholarship figures submitted for permits, the city required an independent accounting review and consulted state authorities. KYAQ also reported an effort under way to recall six city councilors over the matter.

The 2025 festival went on, reduced to one day, June 14. According to Oregon Coast Breaking News, that year was the first in the festival’s history without a city proclamation. Mayor Lambert had asked on social media for a special meeting to make it sooner than the scheduled June 12 council meeting. The city manager judged that the request could be read as a serial meeting and that the proclamation could not be made even on the 12th. Without a proclamation, vendors would have needed city business licenses, so the city waived the fee for that day only. The committee said it had also lost the Wednesday market, one of its main sources of money. The single day still held music, a car show on Highway 34 in front of Eager Beaver, a vendor fair on John Street in front of the Moose Lodge, a noon parade, and slug races at 4.

It held no timber show. Rios told KYAQ that the coordinator of the logging competition had stepped away, worried the press could affect her job with the school district. Rios said the show had drawn competitors from across the country and from Australia, and had showcased the school’s forestry team, state champions six years running. She also said that after the 2025 festival, friends of the city manager had filed paperwork to hold the event ahead of her group.

The next June the new committee’s princesses came to the Waldport City Council meeting on June 11 at 4:15, and the committee afterward thanked the council and City Manager Dann Cutter for welcoming the court.