All right, good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome the time now but a little sunshine in your life because we've got our friends here from SunFest. How are we doing kids? Oh my goodness sakes, you know, we were kidding around because somebody has always told me that there's maybe a little precipitation at one period might be ever so light. We're in Sunfast and you thought about moving it up to hugh La Lake.
It was an awful we made to help out the city. I mean, well, Carrie, you've been here ever since I've been here, and Charles you've been here last couple of years as well. And it is great to see familiar faces here with SunFest because that means summer is really coming. It is coming fast. Oh, so tell us a little bit about SunFest. What we've got going on? Oh what would you like to know?
We've got a lot going on. How are we kicking things off? First with gosh, we've got we've got bands, we've got we've got bands, we've got food. It looks like the same, but it's never the game's never the same. Oh it's not. You know where we do the live broadcast and we do a big old T shirt giveaway just before we officially opened it up, and everything else like that, and uh, you know about the time I think a guy or all figured out and go oh hey wow,
look at that that move around a little bit good? Hey creat that way. You know, you you got to come by and see it because every presentation is going to be unique. Now you've got all of your vendors all lined up and all your tab people. Absolutely, we and for our vendors. We actually have so many vendors this year we've had to take and move them to where the old Midpark was. Oh but right, have a lot of people doing in the in that area. It is. It's awesome.
Well that is great. You know, the first time we attend, we've only been here for four years, but the first time we attended, we got a good leg stretching. It was good. It was a good nice walk, weather was beautiful, and you know, you got to see
just a lot of needs to the beauty. But you got to see your friends, You got to meet new people, and you know, you got to see just a variety of what is available in Bartlesville and in Oklahoma because all of the folks they have their tents out there, you have your your your artisans, and then you also have other folks out there too. It's great. I think we have like thirty five nonprofits anywhere from DHS to the Boy Scouts and everybody else are going to be out there to let everybody know
what's available in the in their community. Now, Carrie, how hard of a job is this to line everything up? Because it just gets bigger and bigger every year. It does get bigger and bigger, and it takes a lot of people to help pull this off. And we're all volunteers, so it's we need volunteers to help run things. We need volunteers, you know, just for everything pretty much. Wow. I mean we're not paid. We do this because we want to do this. And how long you've been
doing this? SunFest is how many years old for Sunfests? This is our forty barthday? Oh oh okay, good well that's a good start start. Yeah, it was. It was originally a maybe body. It was a history. It actually started at Johnstone Park the first year huh, the old tr Debut group put it on and they took a year off and then they moved it to Sooner Park and it's been blossoming ever since, other than the year we had to take off for COVID. Yeah, yeah, that was
that was a good downer. Yeah, that wasn't very much downer. But you know the thing is that it's always a good time and you never run out of smiles there. Now that's kind of like, you know, instant smile outside shine and it really is wonderful, and of course the music is awesome. Who do we have with some of our main entertainers coming up pig here? Oh, let's see if on Friday night we have like TC love of coming into play, the High Dramatics, Redbud bandits um at the bandshell,
we have Operation Eagle picking us off there. Philip's Gymnastics is going to be there on Friday night. They always kind of put on a nice display that is. So we've got the movie Goonies that we're gonna show the Yea, the original movie that takes me back to high school, So we have that on Friday night. On Saturday, we have Kevin Knowles, we have Stacy and the Geriatrics. We have our lovely Tom David record artist Tom David and Jeanette Webster. And the evolution is going to be there. Let it
ride. Sheriff. You know something I tell everybody my sheriff can out sing your and by the time they hear Sheriff Scotto and build out a few tunes, go okay, yeah, yeah, he's my money. Yeah, you win the bad We've got local Chase Wilson can be out there with nice Saturday at the bandshell. We have some fitness groups coming out to do stuff.
We've got music out there as well. Saturday night. We have Hotel truns Sylvania three summer vacation that we're going to play because we kind of wanted to get back to the lawn chair lemonade feel of SunFest and what it used to be is the backyard picnic type the biggest picnic and state type deal. Oh, I believe that we want to those roots make it more picnicky and fun. Um. So we've got a lot of fun things going on the whole weekend. See. Do you have a fellow by name of Joseph Blaude that's
going to be performing out there too. I believe he's a jazz artist. Not quite sure? That quite sure? Okay, Well others double check. You've been trying to hit a ride with me for a long time, but no spot. Yea, yeah, well that's cool. SunFest is great. Forty one years and still going strong. That is just unbelievable. I mean, this is like our signature event here as we you know, here in the twenty first century, you've bet half you know, half of your existence.
So this is really a cool thing. So we have a lot of people who move into our area every year, as you know. And if you haven't been to SunFest, you got to bring the whole family. And I want to stress family because it is a family of and far more so than you'd ever imagine. You don't have to worry about influences that might be for the kids because everything is kid friendly, you know the fun part. This year we actually had Barslod Police Department reach out to us and they wanted
to be one of our nonprofits. We said, okay, now here's the deal. Though, you don't get to be cops. You just get to come out and shake hands. Are gonna bring their dogs, Oh yeah, they can show what the dog with the animals will do. But they don't get to be cops unless you know, something happens. Because we have a security I'll comb the security professionals come out into security for us and they do
a great job. So yeah, we're gonna have the police, local police and the Sheriff's department out there Waterfall just to meet, just to meet a local law enforcement to let them know we don't We have a great group of ladies and men out there working in the in the field, you know. Carry they got their little thing that they do downtown. Maybe they're gonna get some pointers from you all. Maybe Carrie, how long you've been with it here about a minute? Yeah, I'm not sure if it's eight years.
Well, yeah, I just know that you were really gung home when I first came into town. You haven't lost any of that energy. Oh well, thank you. Yeah, yeah, I love it. And Charles, I don't know if you even sleep because when this thing starts coming around and you guys got to get together, get your committees going. I mean, it's like a house of fire. It's it's it's a challenge, but it's a lot of fun. It is. That's it's a strange thrill force,
a strange it's like the wildest roller coaster you could ever jump on. Oh I imagine it is, because you know, you've got a lot of uncertain you know that COVID would that was that was not nice, But we worked around that. We did that. You guys did a fabulous job. We came back bigger and better than ever we did. And you know I gave
him five pounds just smelling the food. You know, in the fun things you just talked about, families were based upon come out and spend the afternoon for free, because unless you want to eat, or unless you want to buy something, everything is free, you know, with the music's free,
the ponies are free, the children's games are free. Everything out there is based upon free unless you just want to go buy something from the marketplace or buy food, So you can come out and enjoy it without a price, if if that's what you want to do, and even that is very reasonable in comparison to it where you might be going elsewhere, because you know, we keep it so that folks want to keep coming back. Yeah. Absolutely, But I said that's so it takes a lot of sponsors to pull this
off. You know, that's you know I had to do this last year. I had to check to see who had the best cheese steak, then who had the best brought and then you know who had the best curly fries. It was a tie. Yeah, I'm gonna have to do it. So I'm gonna have to come out and do my testing again. My kids are gonna go say you watch out, Dad's eating man. We have some of the same vendors, we have some new vendors. You know, everything changes a little bit every year. So but the specialty is the music.
And I don't know where you got that big sun stage with the big sunshine on it, but boy, I tell you what, that big stage is awesome and you have probably the best sound crew I've ever heard, and it just it speaks for itself. This is a big world class of end don Donnie in the group does a great job that putting on the sound for us. That they make their side of an easy for us is all I can
say. You know something, Donnie looks pretty relaxed when he's running in that control board, but I know he's going like a hurricane to get that thing set up just so it's perfect, and he won't let her go until it's perfect because he's a he's a perfectionist. But it's really kind of neat to see him just go. Yeah, you get a chance to see him, he might relax for a moment in the sound booth tent. So just way about him and saying good on you because they work so hard. Absolutely,
that's absolutely said. The stage will start going up Thursday. It'll change from the normal part to to SunFest and you know when we go to bed Sunday night, it'll be like it never happened except for the memories and the and the and the thoughts about it. Are we gonna do it a special thing on Sunday like we did last year? We are, we are. We're gonna have some of the local churches come out and let them do their singing,
and so we're kind to do it. That's what Sunday will be is those the local churches and the other groups that want to come out and perform. We have the main stage and the bandshell booked on Sunday, so we'll we'll we'll be hopping on Sunday. Church is kind of popular around here. Church is very popular around here. I tell that to everybody that they I'm from originally from up North. I'm trying to live it down. But you
know, when they say, well, what's there to do? In Oklahoma, so well, you know, even getting pretty good with God because there's a church on every block. I'm like Illinois, where there's a bar on every block, right, So it's kind of kind of reverse. But it's also a great place to raise families. And this avenue of fun is unparalleled.
I've lived a lot of different places, to quote Leon Russell, in my life and time, but sun Pest has been a friend of mine and it really is a great place to just go out, get some sunshine, get some fresh air, get some sweet corn. Oh well, I tell you what, those guys had a run last year. I didn't know so many people like sweet corn until I saw that line, and though, man, that's going all out to the road. But whatever it is that you
like, it's probably gonna be there. And one thing, I'm sure you're gonna see there as your friends and new neighbors, and you're gonna hear some of the most beautiful music and probably the biggest variety. And that's that's it. We've we've worked hard to keep the variety part of it open because you know, we don't want to just do one genre, so we're you know, we're always looking for something different. But we tried to spread out the
genres and make it everybody enjoys it. How hard is that when you guys are picking U it's a real challenge that one rehearsed. It's a challenge, that's for sure. Oh you know, because you know, I threw my traced up said try it, just apply. I said, well and he said no, just try, just try. Said the worst anybody can tell you is no, And I'm going so good, look at that. I got an email. Yeah. Well, we asked trades, like who is this guy's like, well, he's really good, not that trades a salesman,
but tra trades a good help. He has a great hand, marvelous hand this year, last year, and this year helping us get stuff organized with music and entertainment. Oh well, I tell you what. We're gonna have a lot of fun. We're gonna have a lot of celebration. We're gonna have a lot of sunshine too. That's hope, hope. Like I said, it's uh, well to be what it is. You know, we get a little rain, but they can't rain all through all three days.
No, no, no, this year probably gets skipped anyway. Probably, so um, I do want to remind you. You know, like I said, we have ponies DSR. They those guys are awesome. You know, we couldn't have ponies without them. Um, you got the sheet because I don't have I have terrible memory. If it wasn't it wasn't for Trudy, we couldn't do movies, you know. Smiles Fari smilest for youth fast. That's how I find you. Yes, that's what cras for the
kids. That's her home. What others do? I don't have so, but it's okay because you know, we'll be announcing it a lot when we do the live broadcast and leading up to it, we're gonna have that all listed on the news story that we do that here too. So don't feel like we're pressing it for time or anything here because because we're not really got a minute left. But folks wonder, you know, where do we park? The best parking lots are to the south. There is one hidden parking
lot that's behind the miniature golf that you can get too off of. Found it, Yeah, that you can get too off of. You know, that's the hidden one. But a lot of it, you know, is to the south, and like like you said be prepared to walk because it's a park and that's one of the goals to be out there, is to be out there in nature. We do offer, you know, handicap parking over by the old tennis courts on that and south side or side, suth
side, whatever side. I can't think of what correction that's directually challenged, and I'll tell you what it's well with your time. I want to thank you both for being here with us today. Thank you, we thank you. We didn't realize you were an interviewer and are a performer until five minutes ago. Flowerland, where emotions are expressed in creativity, is delivered flowerland flowers dot com kW