Once the all-clear was given by officials that there was no lightning in sight, Saturday’s 45th Annual Popcorn Fest in downtown Valparaiso kicked off with its array of events.
Preceded by American Legion Post 94’s flag-raising ceremony, the Lil Kernel Puff youth races and Popcorn Panic 5K started and spots on the parade route started filling up with chairs and a lot of umbrellas.
“Nobody is paying any attention to the rain,” said Susie Hord, riding in the parade as a recipient of the Valparaiso Good Neighbors award.
“The enthusiasm of the crowd wasn’t dampened by the occasional sprinkles,” said Hord.
The 2024 parade had a total of 98 participants, made up cars and floats from politicians, businesses, and nonprofits.
New to the floats this year was Valparaiso’s own Rock Island, scoring the “Best New Float” award. Located on Highway 30 and Coolwood, Rock Island has made local news for an area of rocks that — despite signage and other efforts — continually gets hit by cars.
“We had this wild idea to get a flatbed, and Sandberg’s towing offered to help and it was perfect,” said Messer, of Portage. “It looked like someone’s car was being towed exactly as it would be if you hit a rock on the island.”
“It was unanimous that we wanted an exact copy of the island, but scaled up for an easier visual,” said Messer. “We made an oversized boulder with chicken wire and tubing, used paper mache, sprayed it gray and then glued a ton of popcorn to it.”
“We had rock-themed music playing, and one of our islanders had made small traffic cones with rock island stickers, so we were passing those out,” said Marco Trevino, who walked in the parade with his family passing out the cones.
Parade entries are encouraged to utilize popcorn and corn products in some manner. In order to qualify for judging, it is required to have at least 30% of their design with popcorn and corn.
In addition to the hundreds of craft and art vendors, many festival-goers headed straight for the food. A line had gathered at Franklin and Lincolnway for the House of Garlic food truck.
“I fell in love with this at first bite,” said Mike Eleftheri of his steak shwarma, who was spending the day working at a booth but took his lunch break.
“I am of Greek nationality and these Lebanese flavors are very similar,” said Eleftheri, of Valpo. “I really enjoy shwarma so I had to try it.”
House of Garlic owner Elie Assaly had only a few seconds to talk, but was excited for his second successful year as a small business at Popcorn Fest.
“We have been crazy busy,” said Assaly of Hebron. “We are serving fresh, made-to-order food. And it’s actual food, not just Fair food.”
The Popcorn Festival booths stayed open until 6:30 p.m. but the day didn’t end there, with many evening events following the Festival at many local bars and eateries.
Deena Lawley-Dixon is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
