Our Days Celebration

At eight o’clock on the Friday evening of Our Days, the Twilight Parade leaves La Center Middle School and moves along Fourth Street into downtown, turns up Aspen, and breaks apart at Tenth and Southview Heights. The posted route for 2026 said it would disband there “instead of the church.” That parade ran on July 24, 2026. The La Center Historical Museum records its theme as “Stars, Stripes and Small Town Pride,” and The Columbian’s listing gave it as “Stars and Stripes.” The grand marshals were Gerrit and Karen vanTol.

The festival committee calls Our Days the “Steamboat Celebration” and says the town gathers every July “to celebrate the unique heritage of our river town and the people who make it home.” The city’s festival page also calls it the Our Days Sternwheeler Celebration. The committee is entirely volunteer. Sam Glackler is chair and treasurer, and he also runs the beer garden. Tom Strobehn is co-chair. Others take one event each: Melynda Downing and KC Kasberg the car show, Nona H. Mallicoat the parade, Quinn and Renee Sanders the 5K, and Stephanie Clark the cake walk and the 50/50 raffle. Linda and Britney Tracy run the baby contest, the bingo, the dog contest and the La Center Beauty Pageant.

Friday evening on Fifth Street

The parade ends the evening, and two events on Fifth Street come before it. From four to eight, the Clark County Sheriff’s Office opens its La Center precinct at 105 West Fifth Street so visitors can meet deputies and look at the equipment on display. From half past five, the City of La Center holds a night market and block party on Fifth between Birch and Cedar, with food vendors, a beer garden, DJ’d music and artisan stalls. The city’s invitation reads: “Come check out La Center’s newest park before the Our Days parade winds into downtown.”

Coverage of earlier years shows what passes along the curb. In 2023, under a “Hollywood” theme, Clark County Today photographed Jeff Siebert with Curly the Camel, whom it called a “La Center favorite.” Plumbers dressed as Mario and Luigi handed out candy. A powersports dealer lit up its entry. Kayla Sousa, Miss Greater Vancouver, waved to the crowd, and the Clark County Fair Queen, Lydia Wainwright of Ridgefield, rode in the line. The 2015 parade, themed “Back to the Future,” was judged in categories that included Best Float with Theme/Illumination, Best Equestrian and Best Car Club Participation. Its floats carried glow-in-the-dark trim and strings of lights for the dark.

Saturday at Holley Park

Holley Park, at 1000 East Fourth Street beside the La Center schools and the Fort Vancouver Library, holds all of Saturday. It has two baseball fields, a softball field, a soccer field, tennis courts, and a splash pad and skate path the city built in 2013. A free C-Tran shuttle runs from ten to four between the high school, the middle school and the park.

The day begins at seven with check-in for the 5K run and walk, which starts at eight. The committee says the route runs “through the heart of La Center” and finishes “just in time to get pancakes.” The pancake breakfast is held in the Wheel Club, a building in the park, from eight to eleven or until the food runs out. The Class of 2027 Senior Parents cook it. For a suggested donation of $10 a plate holds pancakes, sausage “and more,” and every dollar goes to the seniors’ safe-and-sober graduation party.

At half past nine, dogs gather in front of the main stage for Paws in the Park. The 2026 contest was billed as the first. Its categories were best in show for large and for small breeds, best costume, best trick, biggest personality, waggiest tail and cutest puppy. Owners sign up on the spot, and the dogs stay leashed. Babies follow at half past ten in three age classes: up to six months, seven to twelve months, and thirteen to eighteen months. Every entrant gets a medal and the winners get trophies.

By ten the rest of the park has opened. Cars arrive on the ballfields from eight, and the committee describes the field as “a gallery of automotive history,” running from vintage builds to modern muscle, with awards at half past two. Three-on-three basketball games are split between the park and La Center Elementary. The Kids Zone has a bounce house, an inflatable obstacle course, a giant Connect 4 and a ninja challenge, and face painting is free from eleven to three.

The 2026 food stalls listed by booth were:

• Kp’s BBQ: ribs, brisket, mac ‘n’ cheese and hamburgers
• Getta Gyro: gyros
• Chicago Dogs: Chicago-style hot dogs
• Spuddies Gourmet: loaded potatoes
• Honu Hawaiian Shaved Ice: shaved ice at $7
• Sweet Snack Attack: mini donuts
• Fiesta Magic: cotton candy
• Spirited Times Mobile Bar: dirty sodas

More than seventy booths were numbered on the merchandise side, among them quilters, 3D printers, macramé, Munoz Berry Farm, La Center Lavender, the American Legion, the La Center Lions and the La Center Museum. From eleven, the tennis court serves as the beer garden, with Exit 16 Brewing on tap and cider and wine.

The afternoon moves toward the main stage. An all-ages cover band played from half past twelve in 2026, and Rodeo Rose played from three. Bingo starts at one, indoors in the Wheel Club, with postage-stamp, traditional and black-out games. At two, “Who Takes the Cake” sets a musical-chairs game against a baked-goods raffle: whoever stands on the magic spot when the music stops takes the dessert home. Raffle sellers walk the park all day, and the 50/50 winner is called from the stage at a quarter past three.

From one day to three, and back to two

In 2015 The Reflector reported that Our Days began in the mid-1960s as a small-town celebration. Suzanne Levis, the 2015 chair, told the paper: “They used to have it on just one day, but that was too much. Now we spread it out over three days.”

That year the festival ran from Friday to Sunday, August 21 to 23. After the parade, families carried lawn chairs to Sternwheeler Park for an outdoor showing of “Paddington.” The La Center High School cross-country team put on Saturday’s 5K for donations only, after a half-mile children’s race around Holley Park. The course crossed the Lewis River, passed the wetlands, and had a moderate hill at the first mile. Car owners paid $5 to enter the cruise-in on the grass, and the first hundred received dash plaques. A barbecue at the Holley Park Community Center and free root beer floats rounded out the afternoon. Marianne Flemming and Kevin Neil opened the main stage with folk, jazz and Americana. At night, a free street dance on Aspen between Fourth and Fifth featured Pull For Fire, a La Center band of four young players: Blake Johnston, Bret Johnston, Walter Hansen III and Jacob Mendez. On Sunday the library sold books at a dollar a bag, and barbershop quartets sang in the Sternwheeler Park amphitheater until eight.

Jim Irish, mayor from 2004 to December 2015, remembered other turns in an oral history recorded for the museum. He recalled the city’s new La Center float appearing in 2005 and changing over the years as the city changed. For the city’s hundredth birthday in 2009, he said, the festival moved from its usual third weekend in July to August. He also recalled being urged at the face-painting table to play connect-the-dots with his freckles, until the painter decided she did not have enough ink.

By 2023 the festival had settled into two days at the end of July. The movie after the parade was “Matilda” that year. In 2024 the closing film was “Back to the Future 3,” shown at Holley Park. Wendy Chord, the 2024 chair, said the festival was still recovering from COVID, and she praised Mayor Tom Strobehn: “he is all about the community and the people and what we need.”

Grand marshals and themes

The museum keeps the list of grand marshals and themes. It begins with Ken Hickman and “The Great Outdoors” in 2008 and resumes with Jim Irish and “Masquerade” in 2011. Later entries:

• 2012: Liz Cerveny, a former mayor, with “Blast from the Past”
• 2013: Bob Colf and family, with “Flower Power”
• 2014: Marc Denney, with “Puttin’ on the Ritz”
• 2015: Linda Tracy, owner of A Formal Affair, who that year also took entries for the baby contest
• 2016: Tom Wooldridge, with “Under the Sea”
• 2017: Blaine Dohman, with “American Heroes”
• 2018: Nelda Perryman, with “Celebrating Steamboats”
• 2019: no grand marshal, with “A Pirate’s Life For Me”
• 2020 and 2021: COVID, no parades
• 2022: Ed and Janet Bausch, with “Under the Big Top”
• 2023: Josh and Kris Soske, with “Hollywood”
• 2024: Michael Kirkman, with “Wild West on the River”
• 2025: Peter Rosenkranz, with “Going Renaissance”

The museum stands at 410 West Fifth Street, a block along from the precinct open house. It is run entirely by volunteers and calls its keepers La Center’s “Memory Keepers.”