Another record-high hot day did not deter people of all ages from attending Rice Family Fun Day Aug. 15 in downtown Rice.
Thousands of people clearly enjoyed the annual festival, which began at noon with the opening of food and beer stands, kiddie games, including inflatables and a pellet-gun shooting range and a kiddie parade.
There was also the main parade in the afternoon, a tractor-pulling contest by the Mid-Central Pullers and water fights by members of area fire departments.
Throughout the day, an occasional breeze took off the edge of the hot, humid day, much to people’s relief. Festival-goers also stayed cool by drinking lots of liquids, consuming free Kemp’s ice cream, holding umbrellas over their heads or clustering in shady areas to socialize and enjoy their finger foods.
Rice Family Fun Day was capped off in the evening with music provided by Flash Mob and later by BLIMP, with people dancing the street and enjoying beer at the beer stand. Proceeds from the 9 p.m. raffle drawing went to cover costs of the annual Fun Day.
For more about the festival, see photos in today’s paper and in the online version of the Sauk Rapids-Rice Newsleader at www.thenewsleaders.com.
Dalman was born and raised in South St. Cloud, graduated from St. Cloud Tech High School, then graduated from St. Cloud State University with a degree in English (emphasis on American and British literature) and mass communications (emphasis on print journalism). He studied in London, England for a year (1980-81) where he concentrated on British literature, political science, the history of Great Britain and wrote a book-length study of the British writer V.S. Naipaul. Dalman has been a reporter and weekly columnist for more than 30 years and worked for 16 of those years for the Alexandria Echo Press.