Carlton Fun Days

The gates at Ladd Park, at Kutch and Main in downtown Carlton, opened at 4 p.m. on Friday, June 26, 2026, and Carlton Fun Days began. Vendor booths stayed open until 10. The Big Larz Beer Garden started pouring at the same hour, and teen games ran in the park through the evening. Zach Abbe played from 5:30 to 7:30, and the Double D T Band followed from 8 until 10.

At the soccer arena nearby, the With Courage cornhole tournament ran through the evening for the benefit of a nonprofit that helps people with breast cancer. The News-Register’s preview listed entry at $40 a team. On the day itself the organizers posted a change: a walk-on bracket at $20 a team, first come, first served until full. The program also offered a Pink Out costume contest, raffle prizes, a Long Shot Contest, and hot dogs. Beside the tournament was a kids’ area with bounce houses, face-painting and soccer, $10 for unlimited play. The Carlton Community Foundation sponsors the festival, and admission is free. The Carlton Business Association counted the 2026 Fun Days as the first of two weekends of Fourth of July celebrating in town.

Saturday from the fire hall to Main Street

Saturday began at 7 a.m. with pancakes in the fire hall. The breakfast ran until 9:30 and raised money for the Carlton Volunteer Firefighters Association, whose fire district marked its 20th anniversary in 2026. Runners registered outside the same building, and at 8 a.m. they left the fire hall for Shanny’s Run. That run was the last under the name. Its founders were the family of Shanny Fugere, a Yamhill Carlton graduate and champion runner who was serving in the Navy when she died in 2015. The News-Register reported that With Courage would organize the event from 2027.

The Cruisin’ Carlton Car Show opened at 8 a.m. on Pine and Monroe streets and in the parking lot near Ken Wright Cellars. Entering cost $20, and looking was free. Owners could register on arrival, and the organizers invited anyone without a car to come see the vehicles anyway. Brian Rake said classic-car owners were encouraged to drive in the parade first and then park at the show.

Parade entries lined up at 9 at Yamhill Carlton Elementary School. Weeks before, the organizers had asked children to decorate their bikes and meet there to ride along. The theme was “America 250,” and the local police department led the parade as grand marshals. It moved out at 10, went north on Third and then west on Main through downtown. Walkers, horses, floats and heavy equipment were expected.

Children ran an obstacle course at 11 a.m., and family karaoke filled the park from 11:30 to 1. Rake said karaoke had been “wildly popular” the year before, so its slot was lengthened. From 11 to 1, Jerry Trimble Helicopters flew riders for eight to ten minutes over Carlton and the surrounding country. Seats were reserved in advance at $50 each, with the proceeds going to With Courage. The town pool held a free swim from noon to 8. The afternoon music in the park began with Caden Livingston, whom the paper called a local favorite, from 1:30 to 3:15. Night Cap played from 4 to 6, and Johnny Wheels & the Swamp Donkeys closed the festival from 7 to 10.

Rake, a former mayor, ran the vendors in 2026. He grew up in Carlton and remembers Fun Days back to the 1970s, when he helped in the fire department’s bingo booth and played the children’s games. “Fun Days is a great way to meet your neighbors,” he told the News-Register. “It’s Carlton’s celebration of itself.” He said he was glad that younger residents had taken up the festival. “It’s all about the community coming together.”

Queens, stick horses and “101 and Still Having Fun”

According to a 2020 News-Register retrospective, Fun Days has been held at various times in the summer. In recent decades it has usually fallen on the fourth Friday and Saturday of June, and the city calendar now fixes it on the fourth Saturday. That same retrospective lists the standing program as food, a free swim, a fun run, music, a pancake feed and games. Over the years it has also included canoe races, rubber duck races and a stick horse rodeo. In the parade, musicians ride on flatbeds, children pedal bikes, politicians wave from convertibles, and horses, floats and vintage cars follow police cars and fire trucks.

The paper’s photographs go back to June 1957. That year Queen Janet Tarpley rode in the Carlton Fun Day parade with Princesses Shirley Hampton and Nancy Williams. A pair of twins sponsored by the Carlton Beauty Shop won first prize with their escort, Tammy Jones. The 1969 festival came in August. Vickie Bellwood, the Carlton Lions Club’s candidate, was crowned queen from a field of seven girls at a Friday-evening coronation. The next day she tossed a ping-pong ball at a group of jars in Upper City Park until one dropped in for a prize. In August 1980, Rhonda Street won the girls’ 13-to-14 pie-eating contest. The parade organizer in June 1993, Caroll Riley, counted more than 50 entries.

The parade has also honored townspeople. In one year the employees of the Carlton Glove Factory, which was closing after decades, served as grand marshals. In 1999, the year Carlton marked its centennial, the grand marshals were historians Mel and Dolly Wasson. Residents posed for a city photograph and toured a museum of a hundred years of Carlton history. According to the retrospective, people enjoyed it so much that the 2000 festival largely repeated it under the theme “101 and Still Having Fun.” Ginger Williams, a business owner who later sat on the city council, said in 1999 that she valued Fun Days as a “chance for the community to come together to socialize, catch up on the news, meet new people who’ve come to town or for no other reason than to have fun.”

The stick horse rodeo ran its pole-bending course in Upper City Park in June 2001. Tresa Apke, a veterinarian at Carlton Vet Clinic, kept time while her husband, Greg, announced. In 2008 a record-heat Saturday kept a line at the snow cone cart, where a boy named Indiana Olson peered under the ice shaver to watch his cone take shape. The paper notes that Fun Days draws tourists but is mostly for locals. “It’s a chance to toot our horn a little,” as a longtime resident put it.

Two missing summers and a crew of newcomers

On April 23, 2020, the Carlton Community Foundation canceled the parade, the concerts, the booths in the park and the rest of Fun Days because of the coronavirus pandemic. “We considered the health of our attendees, vendors, volunteers and entertainers, the economic hardship on our community, and the financial risk of proceeding with the event,” the foundation posted. At the time it set the next festival for June 25–26, 2021.

In the city’s Mayor’s Corner of July 7, 2022, the mayor thanked the volunteers who had just put on “an event that hasn’t been seen in two years.” The mayor wrote that most of the committee were “newbies.” Sara Meyer was chief organizer. Rake handled city matters, and Kara Jamieson ran the parade, with David Blanchard announcing it. Suzanne McLaughlin organized Shanny’s Run. TJ Wilson and Jami Fluke ran the car show, and Karen Lind ran social media and the vendors. The fire department cooked the pancake feed. John Schmidt, Grant Erickson and Chris Frugia worked as crossing guards on Main Street. “This was one of those times when we needed the entire village!” the mayor wrote.

Mike Larson and Colleen Rockwell handled the beer garden and the entertainment that year. By 2026 the beer garden bore the late Larson’s name, the Big Larz. Carlton Corners and The Larson House helped run it, and it poured from a tap trailer that Bob’s Cold Storage lends year after year.