Harrah Fall Festival

On the second Saturday of September the Town of Harrah holds a parade, and when it has passed, the crowd moves to Harrah Town Park on Pioneer Circle. On September 12, 2026, the Wild Rose drum group, led by Casey Mac Wallahee, was waiting there. The festival’s own page had told people to come to the park after the parade to hear them. The rest of the program was music and dancing, several food vendors, a baking contest, and representatives of a local royal court. The bakers got their notice three days ahead: “Time to start baking!! This Saturday, September 12!”

Construction in the park, a full house

The 2026 festival was billed as the 76th annual, and it went on in a park under construction. Carol Johnson of the Harrah Fall Festival Committee told KIMA’s Aden Connor that the town turned out anyway. “We’ve got a packed house this year,” she said. “The community always comes together and enjoys it.”

The grand marshals were Mark and Sarah Hovis. Afterward the festival page thanked them: “We appreciate all you do for our community.” Mark Hovis, a Yakima County fire captain, said he values the day as a chance to build relationships with the community. “The community spirit here has always been pretty high,” he said. “The folks that are here are extremely friendly and, overall, it’s just a great community to live in and to be a part of.”

Groups from nearby towns come to meet the crowd as well. On September 14, 2024, students from the Dream Makers, a White Swan community coalition, took part in the festival to talk with people about preventing youth substance use.

From sugar beets to a fall festival

The event has not always carried the town’s name. “It started out as the Sugar-Beet Festival way back when,” Johnson said, “and as the sugar-beet industry went away, we had to change the name of the title for the event, so we changed it to the Harrah Fall Festival.”

The town that kept the festival going is small. Harrah lies on the Yakama Reservation. When Barbara Harrer arrived from Wisdom, Montana, in 1966, the town had about 300 people and was surrounded by vineyards and hop fields. By 2023, the Yakima Herald-Republic reported, the population had about doubled. Days after Harrer moved in, a man knocked on her door and asked her to take over as town clerk-treasurer. He handed her a key so she could get in the next morning. She became mayor in 1977, and for many years she was one of the festival’s organizers. In the fall of 2023 she was chosen grand marshal of its parade. That December, at 91, she was preparing to step down as mayor at the end of the month, after 56 years of public service.

Sharon Ickes, who helps organize the festival, spoke on the day of the 76th. “We would love to see it go for another 100 years,” she said. “We want more volunteers to help out.”