HAPPY 'DAYS': Wide range of community groups gather for annual celebration

WASILLA — It’s that time of year again for one of Palmer’s biggest community events — not the state fair, nor the Fourth of July parade, but the semi-annual celebration of the Matanuska colony that started it all.

In place of a typical second-Saturday art walk, this weekend Palmer will be abuzz with the festivities of Colony Days, in many ways the summer counterpart of Colony Christmas. Though the focus of the June 10-12 event is perhaps less on gift giving and more on entertainment, each occasion provides ample opportunity for Palmer area residents to support each other and celebrate all the town has to offer.

Nonprofit prep

NeighborWorks Alaska is one non-profit showing its support of the town this weekend in a couple of ways.

Marketing director Ginger George-Smith said the Anchorage-based housing agency opened a Palmer office last spring to accommodate the large number of customers coming to NeighborWorks from the Matanuska Valley, and has thus far seen great success in Palmer.

“We really like being out there,” George-Smith said by phone from Anchorage on Wednesday.

The agency demonstrated its investment in the community Thursday morning by sprucing up the Palmer Museum and Visitor Center with a fresh coat of stain on its outer walls and paint on the building’s trim, as part of the NeighborWorks Week “Paint the Town” project.

Museum director Selena Ortega-Chiolero, who has been in that position for the last four years, said the improvements were long overdue.

“The building really needed a face lift,” she said.

The updates came at a welcome time, too, prepping the museum and visitor center for the increased influx of people this weekend. Between a silent auction to support the Palmer Midsummer Garden and Art Faire from noon to 5 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, a meet-and-greet with the Mat-Su Miners baseball team from noon to 1 p.m. on Saturday and the distribution of free Alaska State Fair flower kits at the museum on Saturday, the center is destined to be a kind of home base during Colony Days.

NeighborWorks is also partnering with the museum on a “community art project,” for which festival-goers will have the opportunity to document their love of “home” — whatever that may be or look like — on a handmade chalkboard outside the museum from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday. In the same time interval, NeighborWorks representatives will host an ice cream social — an old-timey activity that often crops up during Colony Days — at its Palmer office, 625 S. Cobb St., Suite 100.

Antique road shows?

The 2016 Colony Days are packed full of fresh takes on longstanding traditions, from the downtown parade (this year’s theme is “Mountains of Fun in the Peak of the Season”), to the bed races that began in 2004, to the classic and custom car rallies that have been a summer staple for more than a decade.

Greater Palmer Chamber of Commerce executive director Ralph Renzi said people “definitely don’t wanna miss out” on the car rallies, but there’s a new, similar tradition forming that antiquarians should keep an eye on, too.

For the second year in a row, Palmer State Farm Insurance agent and motorcycle lover Erik Christensen is hosting the Alaska Vintage Motorcycle Show on Saturday, June 11 from noon to 5 p.m. The show will feature 70 antique motorcycles of varying makes and models — many of which are at least 40 years old — on the lawn behind the Palmer Alehouse, where refreshments will be available.

All registration fees for show entrants go to Valley Abate for motorcycle safety courses.

Christensen said he started the show as an alternative to commercial events that focus on the sale of new bikes and accessories.

Before the vintage show, “there wasn’t anything grassroots that just focused on old stuff,” he said.

Christensen does allow individual entrants to put up “for sale” signs next to their bikes and negotiate purchases privately if they choose to do so, but the focus is on appreciation and conversation.

“It’s all about the bikes and ultimately the relationships,” he said.

Christensen said he’s hoping to put more effort in the future into telling the stories of the bikes and their owners from a more public platform (like Facebook) as a kind of a build up to the event throughout the year.

Family fun with local teams

If car and bike rallies aren’t your thing or the kids need to run off that sugar from the ice cream social, local high school sports teams have some solutions.

This year, the Palmer High School girls basketball team is in charge of the ever-present kids’ games — complete with bouncy houses — sponsored by Usibelli Coal Mine in the Palmer Public Library parking lot from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday, noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday.

Coach Elgin Hollins said Colony Days is an important event for his athletes, who jump on every opportunity to fundraise — and have fun — that they can get.

“Having a high school sports program in the Valley, you fundraise for everything,” Hollins said. “Financially, it’s huge for us.”

But his team would be remiss if it didn’t engage in other parts of Colony Days, too. Hollins said the girls have participated in the bed races in years past, rolling a teammate through downtown Palmer on a wheeled bed.

The Palmer High School football and softball programs also offer light-hearted recreation for all ages. Palmer Football Boosters sponsors a dunk tank in the library parking lot from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday, and the softball team hosts “salmon slaying” and “crazy hair” styling from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday, noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday.

For a complete schedule of events, visit www.palmerchamber.org/events/colony-days.

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.