Food and craft vendors, cornhole tournament highlight this year’s Tonganoxie Days
Shawn Linenberger
The calendar shows Tonganoxie Days just more than two weeks away.
The festival is making its return during a new season following a hiatus in 2020 due to earlier stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Music, craft vendors, a movie night, a softball game and more are part of this year’s festivities, which will start Sept. 17 with a movie in the park at Gallagher Park.
The Tonganoxie Business Association’s movie in the park series continues with a showing of “Wizard of Paws” at dusk that night at the park, which is just south of Tonganoxie Water Park near Third and Main streets.
On Sept. 18, downtown will be bustling with craft vendors set up from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. and children’s games, a rock wall and petting zoo to be offered from 9 a.m.-2 p.m.
Food trucks will be on hand from 9 a.m.-9 p.m.
Backyard game enthusiasts can enter the corn hole tournament, which starts at 2 p.m. Around the Horn Training in Tonganoxie will be putting on the event, which will be a double elimination tournament that will conclude before 9 p.m. Cost is $20 per team, or $10 per individual. Individuals will then be paired up randomly with other single participants. Registration is available online at The Horn, aroundthehorntraining.com or at Tonganoxie Days. Registration must be done before noon that day, with the top three teams winning cash prizes.
Adult beverages will be served from 4-9 p.m., which is the same time slot for a car meet and live music downtown. A street dance will run 5-9 p.m. that day.
Festivities will conclude Sept. 19 with Tonganoxie city firefighters taking on Tonganoxie police starting at 1 p.m. on the Tonganoxie Recreation Commission fields.
The festival traditionally has taken place each June, but organizers moved the festival and combined it with the Sunflower Stroll, which was created a few years ago to complement the popular Grinter Farms sunflowers south of Tonganoxie that draw crowds from multiple states each year in September.
For more information, visit the “Tongie Days” Facebook page.