Connell Fall Festival

The Connell Fall Festival begins at six in the morning with the Fireman Breakfast, served until nine. The Grand Parade starts downtown at eleven. From noon until six the streets of downtown Connell hold vendors, food, bounce houses for children, and amusements. A cornhole tournament starts at one. After dark comes a street dance. The festival’s page lists its start as 9 p.m. in the program and 8 p.m. in its list of links. A $25 wristband covers all the daytime events. That was the program posted for the 2026 festival, held Saturday, September 12, 2026, in Connell, Franklin County, under the Greater Connell Area Chamber of Commerce.

The 2026 festival downtown

The 2026 page also listed a tractor show and museum events. In the days before the festival, its Facebook page announced two new attractions. One was a human gyroscope (“Lots of fun”). The other was something called Toxic Meltdown, posted with the warning “Don’t get knocked off!!” Festival shirts came in two designs. The event listing ran from six on Friday evening, September 11, to 11:45 Saturday night. By July the organizers reported that Friday and Saturday night entertainment was booked.

The sponsors printed on the page include Connell Grange Supply, Zurcher Dairy, B & R Aerial Crop Care, Nutrien Ag Solutions, Connell Sand & Gravel, Big Bend Electric, and the M & M Motel. The page already names the next edition, Saturday, September 11, 2027, under the line “Times like we remember.”

Three days on Columbia Avenue

An older program carries a 2017 copyright and covers a festival held September 7, 8, and 9. It spread the event over three days. On Thursday at 7 p.m. the Connell Branch of Mid-Columbia Libraries brought Lloyd Stoess to the Sunset Theatre to speak on “How the Ice Age Changed the course of the Columbia River.” Out on Columbia Avenue a burn-out contest and the motorcycle stunt rider Pat Manzi had started at six. Friday brought food and commercial vendors to Columbia Avenue, an open cruise, karaoke at Michael Jays at nine, and the Davis Carnival at Pioneer Park.

That Saturday began at 6:30 with the Fireman’s Breakfast, served by Connell firefighters at the City Fire Hall across the street from Harvest Foods. The Harvest Trot 5K went off at 7:30. At 10:30 came a kiddie and pet parade. Entrants lined up at Connell Grange Supply by ten for judging, and the program asked for “Dog, people and chaos friendly pets only please.”

The Grand Parade followed at eleven on Columbia Avenue. Afterward the park held vendors, the carnival, a car bash, a car show, a tractor show, and games. From noon to 4:30 the Community Center showed quilts, flowers, art, and vintage toys. Cerna Tacos served there from five to seven, with proceeds going to the festival. The street dance ran from nine until one in the morning between Flying X Coffee and the Legion, sponsored by the American Legion’s Jesse L. Colley post, Washington Post 195.

That year’s split-the-pot raffle sold 800 buttons for a $4,000 pot. The winning number was 191. The winner had to hold the button to collect half, $2,000, and the other half went to the festival. Button sellers included Flying X Pizza Station, the Old Brick Store, the Sunset Theatre, the Burger Factory, Mane Street Barber and Beauty, and Mei Lings.

The second weekend in September

The festival’s Facebook page calls it “Always the 2nd weekend in September.” The City of Connell describes it as held the weekend following Labor Day and says it “has been celebrated for over 100 years!” A Chamber notice says it “traditionally falls on the second weekend of September with few exceptions.” The notice adds that the second weekend is reckoned “without regard for the length of the first weekend of September.”

2025 was one of the exceptions. The Chamber board voted to move that year’s festival to September 6, just after Labor Day weekend. Its notice gave two main reasons: distance from the Othello Fair dates and entertainment bookings. The board also saw economic advantage in spreading visitors across two weekends, the second being the sale at the Columbia Basin Jr. Livestock Show. The notice quoted the plea “many existing or potential volunteers are trying to be in too many places at once - we need more help...”

The Chamber called the change something that “may only be a one-time experiment.” It said the move had drawn “undue controversy” from “rogue agents” who alleged it was meant to “get away from the livestock show.” The board answered that the move was strategic and met requests from event managers, restaurants, and retailers. The 2026 festival fell on September 12.

Grange Supply, a grand marshal, a fire chief

John A. and Adele Timm came to Connell in 1967, when John took over running the Grange Supply. Adele’s obituary lists the Fall Festival among their community activities, along with the Grange and the Lions Club. John died in 1984. Adele was born in 1912 near Walnut Grove, Minnesota. She won statewide awards for baking, canning, and sewing, and she made the notices for activities at the Connell Community Center until her death in 2003.

Norman Sackmann was born in 1933 in a winter blizzard on his family’s wheat farm at Lind. He farmed wheat just outside Connell for over 30 years, and in 2001 he was Grand Marshall of the Fall Festival parade.

Bob Koch moved his family from Tacoma to Connell in 1985 and started All State Auto Electric. He served on the Fall Festival committee and was named Connell Man of the Year in 1991. For many years he was fire chief for the City of Connell and Franklin County Fire District #1. In 2001 he and his business were burned in a fire, and the business was a complete loss. He went on to serve sixteen years as a Franklin County commissioner. He died March 29, 2026, at Priest Lake, Idaho.

John Lindner retired as a King County detective sergeant and moved with his wife, Carol, to her hometown of Connell. There they started the Old Hardware Store, later known as the Brick, “a never-ending garage sale/secondhand store.” He sat on the Fall Festival Committee. He also belonged to what his family called “the secret-unsanctioned fly-by-night Connell Antique Tractor Club,” whose restored tractors were driven in Connell’s parades. He died December 24, 2022.

Patrice Hebel, a Chamber board member who manages the M&M Motel, works on the festival. Running for city council in 2023, she said, “I try to get out at every event that we have in town.”