By Stan Rauch, Manager

We are about to be off and running with the 2015 season at Prairie Village and we anticipate that it will be another exceptionally good one.

Our annual consignment auction is this Saturday starting at 10:00 a.m. We have a large number of items consigned including tractors, farm equipment, vehicles and a wide variety of other items. We will continue to take consignments for quality items only up until 8:30 p.m. on Friday, and we require that they be at the village by that time also. The higher value items such as tractors and vehicles will be auctioned at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday.

The items consigned can be seen on the Prairie Village website at prairievillage.org/auction and we update the list daily. This is a great opportunity to be a buyer or a seller. Last year we had a record high 392 bid card holders in attendance. The auction is an important fund raiser for the village, the proceeds from which go to the preservation of the historic buildings.

This Sunday is opening day at the village and with it being Mother’s Day, all mothers ride the train free at 2:00 p.m. Our operating hours are 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Sunday. The train runs every Saturday at 2:00 and the carousel operates daily. We opened the village for camping about three weeks ago.

During May we will have well over a thousand eager elementary school students with us to learn about and obtain an appreciation for how eastern South Dakota rural residents lived many years ago. They will also have fun riding the train and carousel. Seeing all the enthusiasm in the kids is a great way to kick off our season.

A 2015 Prairie Village season pass at $35 ($7 for ages 6-12) is a bigger money saver than ever before as it represents over $90 in purchase power. It is good for an unlimited number of daily admissions, a train ride and admission to all Prairie Village sponsored events including the Jamboree.