Sunshine Days

On the second weekend of September, Sunnyside sets up vendor stalls, food, and a stage in its downtown, by the gazebo between Edison Avenue and Sixth Street. Sunshine Days charges no admission, and all of the live entertainment is free. The Sunnyside Noon Rotary presents it with other local organizations. The 2026 festival ran September 11 through 13 and opened Friday with a DJ playing from three until eight.

Saturday began at nine with the first day of a three-on-three basketball tournament. Divisions ran from first grade through high school for boys and girls, and the men played in two classes, “Men’s 6 Ft. and Under” and “Men’s Over 6 Ft.” There was cornhole. Tri-cities Fino played from one to three and Los Tremendos del Valle from half past three to five. Sunnyside Daybreak Rotary kept a beer garden for adults 21 and over on the gravel area near Centennial Square, open Saturday and Sunday.

The parade on East Edison

At seven Saturday evening the parade stepped off at East Edison Avenue and 16th Street and went west along Edison to Zillah Avenue. Entries were judged in seven categories: royalty floats, organizations, commercial entries, bands and drill teams, children twelve and under, vehicles, and horses. Visit Sunnyside calls it the oldest parade in Sunnyside. Two women who between them have spent most of a century in the town rode at the front as grand marshals.

Gritos and dancing horses

Sunday opened at eight with the car show, put on by the Impalas Car Club and open to all types of cars. Judging began at noon, and winners were announced at two at Centennial Square. The basketball tournament resumed at nine. The afternoon music was regional Mexican and ran in close sets: Andy Ayala y sus Gallitos from 1:15 to 2:30, Los Nuevos de la Sierra from 2:50 to 4:15, and Principio de Tierra Caliente from 4:20 to 5:45. Dancing horses performed at three. The grito contest followed, and the Rotary’s call for entrants read, “Bring your BEST grito for a prize.” Silvia’s Professional Tax Services put up the prize.

Rain came on the Sunday of 2026. That afternoon the Rotary posted, “A little rain isn’t stopping Sunshine Days!” and told the town to grab an umbrella and bring the family. Los Knarios OG closed the festival from six to eight.

Across town at three that same afternoon, the Miss Sunnyside Pageant crowned a new queen in the Sunnyside High School Auditorium. Tickets were $10, sold by members of the court and candidates or at the door. The eleven candidates were Angelita Valencia, Jaretsy Alvarez, Laya Morales, Natalie Guinac, Jennifer Villegas, Kassidy Gonzalez, Velani Martinez, Odalis Mendoza, Mackenzie Saldaña-Jackson, Mikayla Aguilera, and Aleah Larios.

Ford Days, Fete Days

The city’s 2024 proclamation, signed by Mayor Dean Broersma, says Sunnyside has celebrated Sunshine Days “since the early 1970’s” and marks more than 50 years of the event. It credits Dan Hamblet, a former Sunnyside business owner, with naming it. The Yakima Herald-Republic, writing in 2015, traced the festival further back, to the early 1900s, and reported that it had been held at various times of the year under other names, among them Ford Days and Fete Days. The paper also called it smaller than the town’s Cinco de Mayo and Lighted Farm Implement Parade. The name has a local precedent. The Rotary recounts that in 1893, when the town was being established, “Mayhew” was proposed, and that early merchant William H. Cline disliked it, so Sunnyside won out.

The 2015 festival was a lean one. Despite the plural in its name, everything that year happened on a single Saturday. The parade went at ten in the morning, running west on Edison from Sunnyside High School to the Sunnyside Law and Justice Center. Its grand marshal was Gladys Graham, owner of the longtime Sunnyside restaurant Cactus Juice, which had closed earlier that year. The outgoing Miss Sunnyside court and the new candidates rode in the parade, and the new court was chosen at the pageant that evening at the high school. The live music, street vendors, and carnival of past years had been tabled while the Sunnyside Chamber of Commerce reorganized its staff and finances. Deb Estrada, the chamber’s interim director, said supporters hoped to bring them back.

By 2025 the festival again ran three days, September 12 through 14 by Broersma’s proclamation. That year 509 Insanity Basketball hosted the tournament and the Impalas Car Club ran the car show. NonStop Local described the event as honoring the city’s agricultural heritage. The mayor thanked Hamblet and former mayor Don Hughes. The 2024 proclamation had named Linda Egley and Mary Lee Robinson as well, among “those individuals without whom the event would no[t] exist.”

Two grand marshals

Robinson was one of the two who led the 2026 parade. She grew up in Green Valley on Bishop Road, where her father farmed, and graduated from Sunnyside High School. She married her high school sweetheart, Jack, in 1961 and worked eight years for Pacific Power. In 1977 the couple began offering vehicle licensing in Sunnyside alongside their insurance business. After Jack died in 1986 she kept the licensing office running while she raised their family. “I just felt like it was a service,” she said. “I enjoyed the people that I met.” Through the former Uptown Sunnyside Association she helped organize the festival’s downtown activities. She also served as president of the chamber of commerce and has been active in Rotary.

Monica Dietrich has lived in Sunnyside since the second grade. Her family came to the Yakima Valley from Oklahoma after her father, a pipefitter, found work there. She and her husband, Manny, were married 63 years before his death, and together they ran A&W restaurants in Sunnyside and Grandview. She also worked at Valley Auto Parts, managed Bob’s Drive-In, sold real estate, and owned clothing stores. From the early 1980s she coached girls in the Sunnyside pageant on how to speak and present themselves. “I loved all the girls I had,” she said. She remembers families building parade floats for the pageant contestants. Of her selection she said, “I was amazed. I had no idea.”

Dietrich asked Robinson to ride with her. Robinson said she was honored. “I don’t know that I’ve done anything special,” she said. “I’ve just been here a long time.”