Sequim Irrigation Festival gets a new 'ride'
By Diane Urbani de la Paz, Peninsula Daily News
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Joe Borden, chairman and mechanic for the Sequim Irrigation Festival, accepted that as he and the Irrigation royalty drove along U.S. Highway 101 one day last month.
They were on the way home from the Issaquah Salmon Days Parade, in which Irrigation Festival queen Janaye Birkland and her court had ridden and waved.
Birkland and princesses Carolina Garcia, Amanda Cerutti and Rebekah Harasick had to preside from a makeshift float: a platform on Borden's pickup truck.
The Irrigation Festival's elaborate "112 Years and Still Rockin'" float burned up in a roadside fire at Dosewallips State Park on Sept. 8. The float, royalty and chaperones were coming back from the Hoquiam Loggers Playday parade.
No one was hurt in the blaze, which was probably caused by an electrical short, according to Chief Bob Herbst of Jefferson County Fire District No. 4 (Brinnon).
That float was the shell of a 1972 Chevrolet Malibu plus some '57 Chevy parts.
$350 station wagon
The new float is a newer car: a 1985 Ford station wagon Borden bought for $350.
"The guy wanted to get rid of it - said it was a gas hog," Borden said.
"I checked it out, drove it and said, 'This'll work.'"
The car's gas mileage isn't much of an issue since it'll ride on a trailer to parades around the Northwest. The wagon, which has about 160,000 miles on it, will be driven only in parades that are a mile or so long.
Individuals and businesses in Sequim donated the money for the purchase, Borden said.
"Funds are still coming in," he added.
He plans to run a newspaper advertisement to thank contributors.
To turn the Ford into a float, Borden had festival supporter Kevin Kapetan tear its body off.
Next, Allform Welding's Dan Donovan will make a tubular metal frame to be attached to the naked floorboards.
"Already we have a basic game plan for next year," Borden said.
'Old-fashioned schooner'
In the next few weeks, he and other Irrigation Festival volunteers will begin building "probably an old-fashioned schooner," to proclaim the 2008 theme: "Sail into and Discover the Treasures of Sequim, Where Water is Wealth."
The Irrigation Festival, begun in 1895 as a celebration of the ditches that brought Dungeness River water to the Sequim prairie's farms, is the longest-running community festival in Washington state.
The new float will have a "fire wall," Borden said, and extra cooling motors to keep engine heat down.
"When you're only doing 8 miles an hour in a parade, when you're creeping along for two hours, vehicles heat up," he said.
And with all of that plywood and decoration encasing the float, things and people get to sweltering.
On some summer days in the old float, the temperature rose to 260 degrees in the driver's compartment, Borden said, adding:
"It's a weight-loss program. . . . We want to make it not quite so warm."
The Irrigation Festival float appears in some 16 parades from Tacoma to Victoria each year.
The season ends in Shelton on Dec. 1 in a nighttime Christmas procession - in which the royalty, in their sleeveless gowns, may wish for some of that engine heat.
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Sequim Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
Last modified: November 02. 2007 9:00PM
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