Come and Play on Labor Day

On Labor Day in 2026 the rubber ducks went into the Willapa River off the South Bend dock and drifted to the wrong side of the river. The festival’s page reported that Officer Madrid and Chief Stigall were “trying to round up the rogue ducks.” The race was called all the same. Elias took first place and $750, Jaime Souvenir took second, and the list ran down to Pedro Ramos, who was named for last place. Tickets had sold for $5 at Pioneer Grocery and from the South Bend firefighters in the weeks before, and down at the dock until the ducks were launched.

This is Come and Play on Labor Day, which South Bend, the county seat of Pacific County, has held since 1962 to mark the end of summer. Over the long weekend it puts on a parade through downtown, a fishing derby, ball tournaments, a beer garden, live music, and events for children. It closes with fireworks over the Willapa River.

Ducks, a quilt, and the fireworks fund

All the money from the ducks goes to the fireworks. “Our show costs $1000 per minute,” the organizers wrote after the 2026 race. “We couldn’t do it without you!” Smaller sums come in by other routes. Buttons are sold at Pioneer Grocery. In 2026 Mary, Christine and Cathy sewed a quilt for a raffle, and the winning ticket, #418, belonged to Graham. The raffle raised $583 for the show. In 2025 the fireworks went up over the river at 9:40 p.m. on August 31, the night before Labor Day.

The holiday itself centers on the park and the dock. On Labor Day 2026 food vendors were still set up in the park at midday, and the organizers reminded people there was time for “a bite before the duck race.” The Blair Warnstadt Pole Walk starts at the dock at 1 p.m. It is free and open to all ages, and the notice tells entrants to come prepared to get wet. In 2025 a poker paddle for kayakers followed at 2 p.m. The 2026 notice told paddlers to get out their “boats, paddles and life jackets” and finish Labor Day with a winning hand worth $100, $200 or $500.

Salmon at daylight, reptiles in the park

The program begins on Friday. In 2026 the Done Weisel Texas Hold’em Tourney opened on Friday, September 4, at the Chamber building on West First Street, and the co-ed soccer tournament was held again. In 2025 that Friday also opened a three-day softball tournament at Cheney Park, and the band Cold Hard Truth played the Chester Club and Oyster Bar at 8 p.m.

Saturday starts on the water. The salmon derby lasts two days and begins at daylight, with cash prizes. In 2026 it started at 6 a.m. on September 5 from the Ron Craig Boat Launch; the 2025 listing names the South Bend Boat Launch. In 2026 the kids’ races, for children 12 and under, ran at 9:30 a.m. on the play field at Mike Morris Elementary. At 1:30 p.m. a reptile show is held in Mary Rogers Pioneer Park downtown. In 2026 it was April Jackson, the Reptile Lady, and admission was free; in 2025 it was Scott Peterson, the reptile man. The 2025 Saturday also had a noon children’s parade with a superhero theme, a Color Run at the Koplitz Fieldhouse at 8 p.m., and the band Strange Brood at the Chester Club.

Some events run all weekend. The Friends of the Library hold a book sale at the Penoyar Law Office. The Willapa Playhouse, at 125 Spruce Street, holds an art show. In 2026 it was the playhouse’s third annual art show and sale, with a garage sale in the basement, open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. from September 5 through 7.

On Labor Day morning of 2026, the festival’s page posted the fishing derby winners and a farewell from the people who had run it: “Deb, Bruce and I have had a wonderful time doing the fishing derby. The fishing community are some of the best people ever. We are passing the torch.”

The parade on Robert Bush Drive

The main parade steps off at 1 p.m. In 2026 it went down Robert Bush Drive. The Pacific County tourism bureau notes that the route runs on US-101 and calls the festival “one of the few activities that can shut down a highway.” Each year the parade honors grand marshals. In 2025 they were the School Backpack programs, whose volunteers send food home every Friday with students in the South Bend, Raymond and Willapa Valley schools. That year’s festival also had a theme, “Shuck, Shimmy and Shine.” Music students from the South Bend, Raymond, Willapa and Ilwaco schools march together as the Pacific County Marching Band, and the Ilwaco High School band began its fall 2025 season in this parade.

In 2026 the parade included a replica of the South Bend Carnegie Library mounted on a small trailer. Bruce Weilepp built it for the Friends of the South Bend Library and the “Yes for Libraries” campaign, in support of a levy lid lift that Timberland Regional Library would put to voters that fall. He and his wife, Diantha, had planned the float together. She worked more than 30 years as a library clerk for Clatsop College and Timberland Regional Library, and for the past decade she had run the Friends’ book sale behind the Penoyar Law Office. Weilepp found the trailer in the bushes across the street from his home and asked the owner for permission to use it. “While Diantha had in mind a simple design with mock-up books,” he told the Willapa Harbor Herald, “I decided to build a replica of the South Bend Library while Diantha’s leukemia was returning this summer.” She died on August 15. “There was not much I could do to help Diantha,” he said, “but the float project gave me a purpose during this difficult time.” On parade day the float carried a sign reading “Please lift the lid,” and members of the Friends walked beside it handing children’s books to families along the curb.

A slogan from 1966

The festival began in 1962. Its name came four years later. Don Cox, who helped with South Bend’s Labor Day celebration for many years, coined the slogan “Come and Play on Labor Day” in 1966, and it was still in use when a Chinook Observer profile of the Cox family appeared in 2019. Three generations of that family, “Grandpa” Don, his son Dave and his grandson Matt, have owned and run the South Bend Pharmacy. The tourism bureau’s account says that some past editions ended with a laser light show instead of fireworks.

For 20 years the festival was chaired by Evelyn Irene (Olson) Wilson, and she later served as its grand marshal. She was born in South Bend on August 10, 1932, in the house where her father had been born. She graduated from South Bend High School in 1950. In April 1965 she and her mother, Margaret Olson, opened Olson’s Variety in the Lumber Exchange Building. She was named South Bend’s Person of the Year in 1974, helped start the town’s Easter egg hunt, and served three months as interim mayor of Raymond, the only woman to hold that office as of her death. In 1975 she, her mother and her daughter, Michele Richey, moved the store into a building they had put up at the corner of Central Avenue and Robert Bush Drive, Highway 101. They kept it open there until 2002.