Warden Community Days

On the Monday of Labor Day weekend, children in Warden gather candy off the pavement of Main Street while a parade goes by. Warden High School soccer players hand it out from the route. The cheerleaders wait at the start, and legislators ride through on horseback. In 2025 Rep. Tom Dent, R-Moses Lake, stopped his horse partway along so three residents could pet it. The parade closes Warden Community Days, a three-day festival in a town of roughly 2,500 in the southeast corner of Grant County. Mayor Rosaelia Martinez told the Columbia Basin Herald in 2025 that it is her favorite event of the year. “This event brings a great sense of pride to our agricultural community,” she said.

Studebakers and six hundred hamburgers

The weekend opens Saturday with a car show. Since 2025 it has carried the name the Gordy Edwards Car Show. Gordy Edwards and his wife Anne gave years of work to past car shows in Warden and Moses Lake. The organizers write that Gordy “can always be seen wearing something that has the Studebaker logo on it as it is his favorite vehicle.” The 2026 show ran September 5 from 11 to 2, with judging at 11, live music, and food. It took tractors and motorcycles as well as cars, and the call went out for any “project car, rat rod, hot rod, classic or not.”

Sunday evening brings a free community dinner in the park. The 2024 schedule billed it as “hamburgers, french fries, drinks and fellowship” at 5:30. For September 6, 2026, the organizers listed hamburgers and hot dogs from AgriBeef, French fries from Simplot Food Group, and cookies from Subway, with music by the Stoney River Band from 5 to 7. Picnic-table seating is limited, so people bring chairs or blankets. Volunteer Travis Jorgensen gave the Herald a count for one day of the 2025 festival: “We served over 600 hamburgers and around 300 hot dogs yesterday alone.”

Ash Street to Main on Labor Day

Monday starts early. On the 2024 schedule the firemen served breakfast at 6:30 a.m. at Volunteer Park, and a volleyball tournament began at 8. Only a handful of teams had signed up ahead of the 2025 tournament, and many more joined that morning.

The parade steps off at 11. In 2024 it ran from the Post Office on Ash Street south to 6th Street, west to Main, and north on Main to the Warden Community Center. Fire engines, farm tractors, school teams, and floats make up the line. In 2025 the dancers of Ballet Folklórico rode down Main Street in it.

A bear, a Kool-Aid Man, and the Bubble Fairy

The crowd follows the parade to the park. The inflatable race was held for the first time in 2025. Contestants ran in full-body costumes, and the winner was L.J. Beavers, a 16-year-old Warden High School track runner dressed as a bear. “I think I had an advantage,” he told the Herald, crediting his cross-country running. His mother had signed them both up and ran in a full Kool-Aid Man suit. She tripped during the race. “She signs both of us up and I just agreed to do it,” Beavers said. “She trips and I win.” The organizers brought the race back in 2026 “by popular demand.” It ran at about 11:30 on the south end of the park, with separate categories for half costumes and full costumes.

The rest of the afternoon is entertainment. The 2024 schedule promised “musicians, magicians and dancers.” In 2025 Ballet Folklórico performed a traditional line dance for the crowd, and confetti filled the air when they finished. The same year Kirsten Hogan, the Bubble Fairy, came down from Canada and filled the air over the parade with large, colored bubbles. “I just love the kids,” she said. “Their excitement, their energy, it’s electric.” The 2026 bill added Taylor Kyle, The American Mystifier, after the race. The firemen hold a water fight on the north side of the park, set for 1:30 in 2024. A cornhole tournament signs players up at 1 and starts play at 2. The park fills up, and the organizers ask people to leave electric scooters and bikes at home.

The first parade since 2019

The 2022 festival was Warden’s first Community Days since 2019. It came back after the COVID-19 pandemic, when state officials had canceled fairs and festivals. It ran three days that year. A fun run at Warden Elementary opened it on September 3, followed by a car show and a talent show. A community picnic was held in Volunteer Park on the evening of September 4. The parade came on Monday, September 5. Entries gathered on Railroad Avenue near the Grant County Fire District 4 station, marched south along Ash Avenue, and turned back up Main Avenue.

Sen. Judy Warnick and Rep. Tom Dent, both Moses Lake Republicans, rode on horseback. Fire District 4 brought out a classic Ford fire truck. An antique tractor pulled an antique cart full of members of the Warden Community Church. Miss Othello Rodeo 2022, Lexi Hagins, rode her horse Eddie. The Adams County Sheriff’s Office sent an armored vehicle.

The grand marshal was Gary Olson. He settled in Warden after a tour in Vietnam and ran a construction business, a small cattle ranch, and a hay farm near town. He rode in his 1964 Cadillac convertible, “the last year they made it with fins.” “I was hoping I could do this before I died, that I could be grand marshal one day,” he said on South Main Avenue afterward. Meghanne Amundson, one of the organizers, told the Herald the event was “so much bigger than we anticipated.” “And we needed it,” she said. “It’s been a long couple of years.”

A clothesline in the park

The 2026 grand marshal, Dale Pomeroy, came from Nebraska in 1958, when he was in the sixth grade. His family settled on the county line between Warden and Othello. As a young farmer he watched the Columbia Basin change after the Columbia Basin Project brought water to it, and the organizers say that change is his favorite memory. “This community has done much more for me than I have done for it,” he said. He also remembers Labor Days when parachutists dropped into the park, and the one who missed his mark and came down on a clothesline.