Shelley Spud Days starts this weekend

SHELLEY, Idaho (KIFI) - As the potato harvest begins, the City of Shelley prepares for the annual Spud Day celebration. The tradition dates back to 1927.

"This is spud harvest time," Spud Day Chairperson Rori Christensen said. "Everybody's in the field."

The the event is put on by Shelley Kiwanis Club.

Shelly native Kendall Christensen's family helped settle the land that would become Shelly in the late 1800's, where they would farm potatoes.

"I remember my dad taking my brother and I to the spud-field and we picked potatoes by hand," Kendall Christensen said. "That was very arduous. And we took two or three weeks off school for that."

He says he remembers how his father would take him to the spud celebration after the harvest.

"I remember my father sat me down saying, Don't move, watch. And I remember with my brother watching the big Clydesdale and the Persians and everything come in and and I mean, that was always very exciting," says Kendall. As I got older, I played in the band and we marched."

The lead up to Spud Day includes several pageants, chalk art and Friday's street festival.

The main day starts Saturday morning with the 7 a.m. Spud Run followed by the Spud Day parade at 10 a.m.

As Shelley prepares the city and park for the big event, planners say this year's celebration will draw on the original root's of the spud celebration.

"This year we're pulling a lot of the agriculture back into the community presence because that's really the heart of what built our community," Rori Christensen said.

"We've got the Idaho horseshoe school coming in," she continued. "They're going to have a blacksmith...They can show how horseshoes are made. We've got a dairy exposition with a cow that the kids can milk."

With the new events, displays and vendor's, Christensen assures all the traditional favorite events will continue, and every visitor will get a free baked potato with all the toppings.