Riverside Park Days invites folks to enjoy summer in a small town - this weekend

Brenda Wade Schmidt
Enterprise
Riverside Park Days this year will feature 40 vendors, a softball tournament, a bean bag tournament, a family movie, activities for children and live music.
The two-day event on Saturday and Sunday starts with an early morning run and then continues through the weekend, ending with a City Band Concert and homerun derby.
A 5K run takes off at 7:30 a.m. Saturday at the band shell near the museum and is sponsored by Avera Flandreau Hospital. The co-ed slow pitch softball tournament starts at 9 a.m., followed by a dunk tank, obstacle course and putting green beginning at 10 a.m. through 5 p.m. Free balloon twisting, sponsored by First National Bank, is from noon to 4 p.m.

Live music starts at 11 a.m. with a performance by the summer recreation dance program. Sea Biscuit from Madison performs at 1 p.m., followed by Seamus Donelan at 2 p.m. and Sons of Sans Arc at 3 p.m.
In recent years, a beanbag tournament from 7:30 p.m. to midnight has been a big draw, said organizer Kelley Ramsdell with the Park Days Committee. “Usually we have 20 to 30 teams,” she said. “We’re lucky to get out of there by midnight.”
Mad Mary’s will serve food during the tournament.
At dusk, the Flandreau PTA will show an outdoor family movie in the park.
Both days will include several food vendors, craft vendors and direct sales booths. “We get a lot of vendors from other places,” Ramsdell said.
The Park Days Committee started organizing the event in 2014 after the long-standing summer celebration was at a point of being discontinued. The committee’s financial goal is to eventually have enough money to put a permanent stage in the park.
On Sunday morning, the Team of Angels will serve a breakfast of French toast beginning at 8 a.m. until 12:30 p.m., and the park committee will have a Bloody Mary/Screwdriver bar from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The bar will include preassembled ingredients that people can choose from. “We make it for the people however they want it,” Ramsdell said. “We did that last year, and it was really successful. It was a good fundraiser for us.”
A community church service will begin at 10 a.m., and the City Band will perform a concert at 1 p.m.
The softball tournament will continue Sunday, and the day will be rounded out with face painting sponsored by the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe beginning at 11 a.m., and a dunk tank, the Great Plains Zoo Mobile and a homerun derby from noon to 3 p.m.