Dutton Fun Day

Pancakes at the Legion, a parade on Main Street

On the second Saturday in July, registration for the Craig Storle Memorial Run opens at 7 in the morning at the Dutton city park. At 8 the runners set out on a 1-mile or 5K course. At the same hour the Civic Club begins serving breakfast at the American Legion, 201 Main Street: pancakes, sausage, eggs, fruit and hot coffee until 10:30, no registration needed. From there the schedule runs until nearly midnight and spreads across the Legion, Main Street, Dutton City Park and its baseball field, and the town pool.

Dutton Fun Day is put on by volunteers. The Dutton Fun Day Committee and its board of directors operate it as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit. By the committee’s account, every dollar raised goes back to the town, to maintain the pool and to fund the Dutton Sports Complex and other recreation programs. For that reason no outside vendors are allowed: no food trucks, no craft booths, no retail setups. The rule applies to local businesses and nonprofits as well. Food, drink, games and raffle tickets all go through the committee. The committee takes cards and phone payments, but its events page states that “cash is king.”

The 2026 edition ran July 10 and 11 under the theme “Glory Days,” which the committee described as “a 70s and 80s inspired patriotic throwback” for America’s 250th birthday. In the week before, three volunteers, Verna Mae Schlueter, Bitsi Wells and Natasha Bengochea, painted the downtown windows with scenes ranging from the 1970s and 1980s to the 250th. The Choteau Acantha calls the day a belated Independence Day.

The weekend opened Friday evening at the Legion with trivia night, then in its second year. The Civic Club served a burger dinner from about 6, and questions began at 7:30. One category is built on Dutton graduating classes by decade, and in 2026 it favored classes ending in 6, since reunion groups come home for the weekend. On Saturday afternoon the Dutton Brady School stood open from 1 to 3 so those groups could walk their old halls.

Saturday morning brings open pickleball at the park court after the run. In 2026 the net was borrowed from the Civic Club, and paddles were on hand for anyone without one. Cars for the show begin arriving on Main Street at 9, and owners may drive them in the parade. Kids line up at 10 and march, roll or ride at 10:45, many of them in costume or on decorated bicycles. The main parade follows at 11, with floats, classic cars, horses, bikes and tractors. When it ends, the Legion starts selling hamburgers and hot dogs “until the food runs out.”

A corral, a slip-and-slide, and a band from Havre

By early afternoon most people have moved to the park. The concession stand there serves from 12:30 to 10 at night. The 2026 menu listed hamburgers and double cheeseburgers, hot dogs, pulled pork sandwiches, taco in a bag, pretzels, chicken wings, nachos, sno cones and cowboy cocktails. Inside the Legion, a silent auction runs from noon, with local goods, handmade crafts, gift baskets and services on the tables. The committee’s 2026 page closed the bidding at 3. The Acantha printed 4.

The Kids’ Fun Zone holds games, prizes and a bounce house, and children have their faces painted there. At the park entrance, barrel train rides leave at intervals through the afternoon. From 1 to 5 the Dutton Pool is free to all, with lifeguards on duty.

Over the same four hours the Fun Day Jail is in business. It is a round corral set up near the beer garden and concessions, furnished with a few chairs and guarded by volunteer “sheriffs.” It costs $5 to have someone locked up and $10 to bail out. For $50 a person can buy total immunity for the day.

At 4:30 the baseball field turns into Slip and Slide Kickball. The game is played on tarps covered in soap suds and water by teams of six to eight players, ages 10 and up. Each game lasts 15 minutes. A runner must have both feet in the pool to be safe, home base included. Outs are made only by tagging, never by throwing the ball. At 5, sign-up for the cornhole tournament opens at the horseshoe pits, with a youth division for ages 6 through 12, and the bags fly at 6.

Car show trophies are handed out at 3. The 2026 show was billed as the 33rd annual. Best in Show went to Ethan Wittmier’s 1975 GMC Sierra and People’s Choice to Gilbert and Barb Melton’s 1951 Ford Coupe. Katie Ungaretti’s 1956 Chevy 3100 Big Window won Best Classic. Donald Schultz took the award for furthest distance by driving his 2019 Chevy Camaro SS 2,100 miles.

The evening in 2025 was karaoke. In 2026 the committee billed live music as new, and also spoke of bringing it back. Payson Allaire opened at 6 on the park stage. He is a 2026 graduate of Choteau High School, that year’s Montana FFA State Talent Winner, and a self-taught guitar player who writes his own songs. At 8 the Plowed Under Band of Havre took over. The committee called their sound “black dirt country” and “made for summer nights, small towns, and dancing a little longer than you planned.” The music stopped at 10:25 for the fireworks over the baseball field, and people watched from lawn chairs and blankets. The committee calls the fireworks the biggest part of the whole day and the most expensive to produce. After 11 the band played on toward midnight.

The run for Craig Storle

According to the committee, Fun Day began as a simple summer gathering. Its pages give no founding year. The morning run is older than its present name. Craig Storle graduated from Dutton High School in 1975, went on to Montana State University, and came home to teach and coach. He was married to Amy and raised Carissa, Seth and Austin. The committee remembers him as an avid runner who would talk others into joining him on runs and hikes. In November 2009 he died unexpectedly while on a hunting trip with his sons.

The Fun Run was then renamed for him, and for many years the Storle family organized it. In 2022 it paused briefly. It returned in 2023 at the request of Austin Storle, and Dora Sealey stepped in to coordinate.

Grand marshals and a two-lane highway

Each year the parade is led by a grand marshal. “We love to honor people based on their contribution to the community,” said Michelle Meyer, parade chairwoman, in 2017. That year’s choice was Jack Becker, 73, an insurance man on Main Street since 1977 and a former town councilman. He rode with his longtime companion, Betty Reiquam. Becker said, smiling, that she would be in charge of throwing candy, wearing an old hat that had belonged to her late mother-in-law, Bessie Reiquam Silberman.

Becker told the Acantha that fifty years earlier the town, by then down to 316 people, had four farm machinery companies, four car dealerships and two grocery stores. That was when “we had a two-lane highway to Great Falls,” he said. The interstate drew business away, and in 1985 the Conservation Reserve Program began paying farmers, in his words, “to go to grass.” “I used to know some homesteaders who had Norwegian, German and Swedish accents, and those accents are all gone now,” he said.

The 2025 marshals were Dann and Carol Sims. They met in 1972 at the Wrangler restaurant in Great Falls, where she waited tables and he washed dishes. In August 1980 they came to Dutton, where Dann was hired as elementary physical education teacher, librarian and football coach. Carol taught English and French. Dann later announced district and divisional track meets for 25 years. Carol described Fun Day as a fundraiser for the park and pool “that is essential to the community.”

The 2026 marshals, Larry and Jean Harman, married in October 1968 after meeting at Rocky Mountain College in Billings. They came back to farm Larry’s family land and lived in the house his grandfather built in the 1930s. They farmed until they retired in 2012. Jean served as Fun Day’s barbecue chairwoman for several years.

In 2017 Becker summed up the day this way: “I enjoy Fun Day. It brings people back to Dutton and it’s a wonderful time to visit friends and former schoolteachers, or whoever shows up. As our friends are getting fewer as we get older, it’s a good time to get together and visit.”