After a night of storms throughout Ohio and a failed attempt to visit a festival in Willard (due to the rain), it was nice to wake up and see sunny skies and pleasantly warm weather.
I rapidly got ready, hit the road before the weather could change…
…and made my way to the Columbia Homecoming Festival.
In order to prevent any confusion between the festival name and the festival location, let me explain that Columbia Station’s official name is actually Columbia Township or Columbia – hence the name of the festival.
But since the other Columbia Township (Hamilton County) had already claimed this name many years before, the name of the post office in this township was used to better direct the mail…
…and it was located inside the train station…
…that was called Columbia Station.
Interesting, right?
The festival was pretty interesting too.
With entertainment occurring on the main stage…
…I got to see a little of the Baby Liberty Contest…
…before moving on to the main information booth…
…where there were free candy, brochures…
…and plenty of protection from the bugs and sun.
Beyond that, the booths were fairly standard…
…made up of some decent food vendors…
…and a few other vendors offering miscellaneous products and home-related services.
Actually, one of the more interesting vendors drew caricatures (Adam Pate)…
…and I was happy to take part.
Thanks, Adam!
One thing I particularly liked about this festival was the amount of booths managed by local organizations..
As Boy Scouts sold food (Troop 176)…
…church volunteers sold crafts (Columbia Baptist)…
…collected donations for various causes (St. Thomas)…
…and happily faced soaking wet consequences (Clearview Church).
This helped me see a clearer picture of this rather warm community….
…proud both of its history (Historical Society)…
…and its future (Columbia Local Schools).
And there was plenty to do for Columbia Station’s future…
…in the forms of a playground…
…rides…
…fun houses…
…and games.
They could even win a car….
…as long as their parents bought the winning raffle tickets (Columbia Community Foundation).
In fact, before moving on to the next festival….
I considered trying to win a car myself.