Hilmar Dairy & Farm Festival

The 2026 Hilmar Dairy & Farm Festival opened at 5 p.m. on Saturday, June 6. The notice its organizers posted that morning led with a change: “New Location: Hilmar Middle School,” with parking at the HYSB Fields. Not every listing had caught up. The Hilmar Chamber of Commerce’s festival page still gave the HHS Football Field. A Modesto-area roundup by Pat Clark placed the evening at the Hilmar High football field on North Lander Avenue and put only the car show, from 3 to 4:30 p.m., at the middle school. By that roundup, admission was free, the hours ran 5 to 10 p.m., and the fireworks were set for dusk.

Antique tractors and a sheriff’s helicopter

Joe Schoneman and his crew brought the antique tractors for the show and parade. N & S Tractor, Belkorp Ag and Garton Tractor brought their own equipment, and the Hilmar Historical Society brought the Tumbleweed. David Santos and his family ran the car show, with awards made by My Metal Works. The Merced County Sheriff’s Department landed its helicopter on the grounds, and the Sheriff Posse, Cal Fire Merced County and the Hilmar Volunteer Fire Department turned out as well. Lloyd Pareira, the District 4 county supervisor, brought camels. Shawn’s Emporium of Exotic Animals came too.

For children there were face painting, a train brought by Hilmar Covenant Church and bounce houses from Dora’s Fashion. Alegria Performing Arts Academy performed, and the Turlock VFW presented the folding of the flag. Raffle tickets for donated prizes cost $1 each. Afterward the Hilmar Dairy & Farm Festival Committee thanked everyone who came. It named four members missing from its group picture: Carlos Rocha, Joe Schoneman, Rob Mitchell and Joe Gomes.

Linguica, a goal post and Hilmar Cheese fireworks

Two undated Turlock Journal accounts fill in the evening as it has run in other years. One estimated the crowd at 2,000. In that account the snack bar sold linguica, pulled pork and Portuguese corn dogs to benefit local high school athletes. The kids zone had water bounce houses, balloon animals and a petting zoo. On the Hilmar Lumber main stage, an animal call contest began at 6 p.m. and the Little Milkman and Little Milkmaid competition at 7. Before the fireworks came a community slide show made by the festival chair, Stewart Schulze, who works as a photographic artist. Hilmar Cheese and Fanelli Dairy sponsored the fireworks.

“People really look forward to it. It’s a nice, fun and simple outing. It’s strictly an event put on to give the community something to do. And the fireworks show is as good as any out there,” Schulze told the paper.

The other account lists vendors selling reflective postal numbers, pillowcase dresses and fair food, along with a “mooing” contest. As the evening closed, Boy Scout Troop 911 performed a flag retirement ceremony. The slide show of the Hilmar community then played on a makeshift screen tied to a football goal post, and the fireworks followed.

Jersey cows and a chamber festival

The Hilmar Cheese Company sponsors the fireworks and also tells the story behind the festival’s name. By its account, many dairy farmers settled in Hilmar in the early 1900s. In 1984 twelve of those families formed Hilmar Cheese Company to make the most of their Jersey cows’ high-solids milk. The Turlock Journal, in its undated account, wrote that “for over three decades” the town had gathered at the end of June to honor dairy farming, which the paper called the community’s agricultural lifeblood. It described the event as the Hilmar Chamber of Commerce’s festival, with a pre-Independence Day fireworks show.

The festival of Saturday, June 12, 2021, is the most fully recorded. Lynda Brommage covered it for the Merced County Times. She wrote that Chamber president Crystal Casey, chamber members and sponsors put it together on very short notice, as a start back toward pre-pandemic normal. Vendors and food trucks circled the high school football field. The grass in the middle stayed open for children to run, and some families spread picnic blankets to wait for the fireworks. A Kona shaved-ice truck drew the children, and a bounce house and an inflatable water slide kept them cool in the warm weather.

At the cow-milking lesson, Brommage noted, the children seemed to prefer petting the cow. Joseph Gomes of the Hilmar-Irwin Stevinson Historical Society milked first with his bare hands and then with a manual milking machine from 1905. Across the field stood tractors bearing company logos and the sheriff’s and first responders’ vehicles, among them a very shiny white fire truck. The Chamber had the biggest booth and sold the raffle tickets. Next to it, a long ice bin held free small cartons of milk and bottles of water.

Mark Forrest played guitar and sang country songs to listeners on the bleachers. Michael Seward of the VFW’s National Legislative Committee explained the meaning of each of the thirteen folds as the Turlock Honor Guard folded a flag, two days ahead of Flag Day.

Twelve contestants, ages three to six

The Little Milkman and Milkmaid contest is limited to 12 entries, and the Chamber opened entries on May 3 for 2026. One Turlock Journal account counted 10 contestants and said the winners represent Hilmar at events through the year, among them the homecoming parade. The 2026 titles went to Davis Stevens and Collins Soares, and on the Fourth of July they rode in the Gustine parade.

In 2021 the field was six girls and six boys, though one boy did not appear. Michelle Machado, a Hilmar High teacher and the festival’s MC, asked each child’s age, favorite food, pets and plans for when they grew up. Maxden Vincent, 6, told her he wanted to be a police officer. Asked his age, Logan Draper, 4, held up four fingers. Each child then performed. Feenix Coder, 4, sang “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” and Presley Faulkner, 3, sang her ABCs “in her own special way.” Earlier that evening a 5-year-old Feenix Coder had opened the program by singing the Pledge of Allegiance. Brommage’s account gives both ages.

While the judges deliberated, Dairy Princess Alyce Silva spoke about the opportunities her title had given her. Last year’s winners, Nathaniel Teixeira and Danity Walker, crowned the new ones: Christian Casey, 6, and Maddison Mendes, 4. Machado draped them in their ribbons. By then the contestants had been on stage nearly two hours, and, as Brommage put it, “in a jumble they where ready to get off the stage.”