PORT ANGELES — More than 30,000 tickets for the 30th annual Great Olympic Duck Derby are expected to be sold by the time the yellow ducks are dumped into the Lincoln Park pond for next Sunday’s race.
Ticket sales were at about 17,000 as of Friday, said Bruce Skinner, executive director of the Olympic Medical Center Foundation, which hosts the race, but are expected to grow to more than 30,000 this week.
The main race will begin at 2 p.m. Each duck ticket costs $6. For $30, adopters receive an extra duck (six chances to win) in the race.
The first 50 ducks to cross the finish line will earn prizes for their “adoptive parents.”
The top prize is a 2019 Toyota Corolla provided by Wilder Toyota.
Just before the main event will be the Bub and Alice Olsen Very Important Duck (VID) Race. This is an opportunity for businesses and individuals, including those from outside the Peninsula who do business with local companies, to purchase special VID ducks emblazoned with their logo for $300, $600 and $1,200 each.
A kids’ pavilion will open at noon, offering crafting activities, face painting and entertainment by the Happy Tymers Clown Group.
Tickets for the duck derby can be purchased from members of the OMC Foundation, Olympic Medical Center employees and many students from Sequim and Port Angeles high school, plus students of Peninsula College, who are raising money to support medical education and treatment in Clallam County.
Ducks also are on sale daily at all Safeway stores in Port Angeles and Sequim, Swain’s General Store, Lovell’s Chevron and Shell convenience stores, Jim’s Pharmacy, Wilder Toyota, Thomas Building Center, First Federal and several other locations.
Four people have sold duck tickets for all the 30 years of the race’s existence: Gail Ralston, Dick Kent, Edie Beck and Scooter Chapman.
The first race in 1990 was called the Great Dungeness Duck Derby and was held during the Sequim Irrigation Festival. It then moved to Carrie Blake Park and by 1993 was in the canal at the plant at the base of Ediz Hook, according to Skinner.
In 2012, the race was moved to the Lincoln Park pond.
Proceeds will benefit the Olympic Medical Center Foundation, which has given more than $4.8 million to, or on behalf of, Olympic Medical Center (OMC) during the past 10 years.
The duck race is presented by the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe.
For each adopted duck, the buyer receives a ticket with a printed number, which corresponds to a number on the duck.
All of the numbered ducks are dumped into the Lincoln Park Pond on race day and the “owners” of the lead ducks win prizes.
For more information, see www.omhf.org or call 360-417-7144.
