Grantsville Sociable

On a Saturday in March, the parking lot of Grantsville High School, 155 East Cherry Street, fills first with classic and antique cars. The 2026 car show ran from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., with food trucks on site. It is organized by Bill and Tracy Strickland, whom the Sociable committee thanked that March for “organizing this well loved tradition.” In 2024 more than 117 cars were entered and over 300 people came to look at them. Grantsville lies in Tooele County at about 4,260 feet, with the Stansbury Mountains on the west and the Great Salt Lake to the north. Inside the school the rest of the day follows a fixed order: a reception at noon, a program in two showings, dinner, and a dance that runs until 11 at night.

The Grantsville Sociable has kept roughly this shape for years. The 2026 edition, on March 21, was counted as the 142nd. Its theme was “Planting Roots,” and its chairs were Tracy Begay and Josh Fawson. Each year has its own theme. Earlier ones were “I’m Coming Home” in 2019, taken from the Keith Urban song, “We are Grantsville” in 2023, and “The Stories We Tell” in 2024. The city calls the Sociable its longest-running tradition. In 2019 the Tooele Transcript Bulletin wrote that Grantsville “stakes claims to the longest running community festival in Utah.”

Noon for the honored guests

The reception honors the town’s older residents. Sponsors can underwrite an honored guest at $25 apiece, and an honored guest is a Grantsville resident 75 or older. In 2024 more than 214 of them received free tickets to the luncheon. The Transcript called it “many Sociable goers’ favorite Sociable tradition.” An award goes to the oldest person present. In 2023 it went to Ida Hogan, who was 104. “I like meeting my friends,” she said, and she told the paper she had been coming for 15 or 20 years. She was recognized again in 2024, at 105.

At the 2023 luncheon Bill Brew also received an award. He turned 100 that day, and the room sang “Happy Birthday” to him. Brew lives in Nevada and has attended the Sociable since he graduated from Grantsville High School in 1935. “I enjoy everything about the Sociable,” he said. “The programs are excellent, the meals are excellent, and it’s fun to see all of the exhibits in the halls.” Those halls are hung for the day with Grantsville memorabilia, Sociable memories, school history, and decor from decades past.

Two showings of the hometown talent

The program, “Bringing Out the Home Town Talent,” is given twice, at 2:30 and at 5 p.m. in 2026, with the same skits, songs, and dances both times. The Transcript’s account of 2023 gives the running order. The co-chairs, Chad Johnson and Suzanne Capell, opened with a welcome, recognized the honored guests, and introduced each other. An opening prayer followed, and then the national anthem, sung by members of the Hughes family with Jenean Christensen at the piano. The Grantsville High School Dance Company performed a fallen hero’s tribute dance. In the military tribute that came next, each service anthem was played and audience members who had served in that branch stood to be recognized.

Exit 99, a local country band, played “Half of My Hometown.” Three girls sang and danced to songs of the 1950s and ‘60s for the honored guests. Scout Sutton, Miss Grantsville 2021, danced the Princess Aurora ballet. The high school cheerleaders led the school song. The Skogerboe family sang “Teach Your Children.” Four couples swing-danced, three sisters played “Wild Horses,” and Taylor and Tanner Hutchins sang “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.” “Along Came Jones” was sung and acted out for laughs. The show closed with “Route 66” on assorted instruments and “The Party’s Over.” Between acts, resident Karma Dale told jokes, stories from earlier Sociables, and pieces of town history.

Each program ends by naming the next year’s chairs, and each outgoing chair picks a successor. In 2023 Capell chose Kami Ekins and Johnson chose Jeff Williams, both lifelong residents. Johnson told the paper, “My dad and both my grandpas have been co-chairmen of the Sociable. What a privilege it is for me to come behind them and do that.” Capell was born and raised in Australia and moved to Grantsville about 25 years earlier. “I’m proud to call Grantsville home,” she said. Williams said planning for 2024 began with a first meeting in May 2023, followed by monthly meetings of three or four hours. That year more than 150 volunteers worked the event. Mayor Heidi Hammond said before the 2026 Sociable, “Everything at the Sociable is done by volunteers, and it just makes for a wonderful evening.”

Roast beef, eclairs, and a band until eleven

Dinner is served from 4 to 8 p.m., and the Sociable’s own billing for it is “Visit with old friends. Make new ones. Reminisce about the good old days.” The 2023 plate held a roll, salad, roast beef, carrots, mashed potatoes and gravy, and Soelberg’s eclairs, which the Transcript called famous. In 2024 turkey joined the roast beef, along with green beans and dessert. Soelbergs was among the donors the committee thanked in 2026.

A hospitality room opens alongside dinner. The Sociable’s website listed its 2026 hours as 4 to 10 p.m., while the Transcript gave them as 4 to 11. A live band plays for dancing from 5 to 11. The two sources also disagree on the 2026 ticket price: the website listed $25, and the Transcript reported $22. Tickets were sold in advance and at the door.

The Children’s Sociable is held two days earlier, on the Thursday. Schoolchildren see it during the day, and the town sees it at evening performances, which in 2026 were at 5 and 7 on March 19, at $5 a ticket. In 2024 it ran six times: four daytime shows for the elementary and high schools and two in the evening, with dancing, singing, and a comedian.

The Married Folks Pic Nic Sociable

According to a 2005 Transcript article, the Sociable began after officials of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recommended that towns hold a celebration honoring their fathers and mothers. Grantsville held its first on January 6, 1884. Alma A. Gardiner wrote a 1959 thesis titled The Founding and Development of Grantsville, Utah, 1850–1950. By his account, the first gathering was limited to married couples and open by invitation only, which is why it was called the “Married Folks Pic Nic Sociable.” A flier pictured in his work shows that by 1886 it had become the “Old Folks Annual Picnic Sociable.” The city’s history page, excerpted from Gardiner, describes it as an event “believed to be entirely unique to Grantsville alone.”

At first one chairman put the program together. After a few years a chairwoman was added, and the Sociable has had a chairman and a chairwoman since. In earlier years the dancing was held in the town’s opera house, which opened on July 28, 1900, with the drama Santiago and was dedicated on December 1, 1901. Janice Marriott, an honored guest co-chair, says that because the dance floor was on springs, people could dance all night.

Smallpox, influenza, and a new name

The Sociable has been called off four times since 1884, each time for disease. It was suspended in 1901 for a smallpox epidemic and in 1919 for influenza. The 2019 Transcript still counted those two as the only interruptions. Then COVID-19 cancelled the Sociable in 2020 and again in 2021.

The Children’s Sociable was added in 1984. In 2015 the committee dropped “Old Folks” from the name, because people were reading it too literally and assumed the event was only for the elderly. Hal Sagers, chairman that year, explained that the Sociable is meant for everyone 18 and older and is held in honor of the town’s older residents.

In 2026 the committee began a YouTube channel to digitize old Sociable programs. Over the summer it posted recordings from 2003, 2006, 2010 through 2012, 2015, and 2024 through 2026. It also posted 1985 and 1990, marking each of those two years with an exclamation point. The committee has asked anyone holding DVDs or VHS tapes of the missing years to lend them.