Prairie Village News 05/03/2012

Stan Rauch, Manager

We are about to be off and running with the 2012 season at Prairie Village. We anticipate that it will be an exceptionally good one.

Our consignment auction is this Saturday. We have a very large number of items consigned including tractors and other farm machinery, cars, boats, industrial equipment and a wide variety of other items. The auction starts at 10:30 a.m. We will accept items until 9:00 a.m. but prefer that they be out at the village no later than 8:30 Friday evening. A complete list of consigned items can be seen on the Prairie Village website at prairievillage.org/auction. We update the site daily as items are consigned. The auction is a great opportunity to be a buyer or seller. Last year we had 267 bid card holders and sold $105,873 worth of goods.

With further regard to our website at prairievillage.org, it has been substantially upgraded. There is a very large amount of information about all aspects of the village on the site. Historic Prairie Village is also now on Facebook.

Sunday is the opening day of our 2012 season. We usually start on Mothers’ Day but the way the calendar falls this year we open this weekend instead of Mothers’ Day on May 13. Our operating hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Sunday.

During May, we will have a large number of 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.

School tours time is always a great experience for us. Seeing all the enthusiasm in the kids is a great way to kick off our season.

We have a full schedule of events again this year including the SD Ploughing Association Tractor Ride (June 2), Northern Bull Riding Tour (June 8), Madison Area Arts Council White Night Festival (June 16), Motongator Joe’s Country Music Festival (June 22-24), Something New band Rock & Roll concert (July 7), Railroad Days (July 7-8), Miss Prairie Village/Miss Prairie Princess Pageant (July 22), 19th Annual Madison Car Show (August 5), 50th Anniversary Steam Threshing Jamboree featuring John Deere (August 23-26). and the Pumpkin Train (Oct. 6).

As you can imagine, our 50th Anniversary Jamboree featuring John Deere is going to be an absolutely huge event. The current details on the Jamboree are available on our website at prairievillage.org/jamboree.

With all of the great events coming up this year you may want to consider purchasing a season pass at $20 for adults and $7 for ages 6-12. The passes are a big money saver as they are worth over $64 in purchase power because they are good for an unlimited number of daily admissions, a train ride, and admission to all Prairie Village sponsored/conducted events, including the Jamboree which will be four days this year instead of the usual three. Season passes are not accepted for the Country Music Festival as that is an independently conducted event.

We also offer Prairie Historical Society Associate Memberships at $45 which includes two Prairie Village Season passes that are transferable to anyone, and a recognition certificate. The transferable Associate Member season passes are especially valuable as they can be loaned out to employees, family members, and friends. Season passes and Associate Memberships can be obtained through the mail at PO Box 256, Madison, or by stopping by our gift shop.

The 2012 Prairie Historical Society board of directors includes George Lee, president (Madison); Kevin Bowman, vice president (Brandon); Joanne Shellum, secretary (Trent); Kelli Wollmann, treasurer (Madison); Mark Bakker (Sioux Falls); Don Finnell (Lennox); Laura Palmer (Madison); Kent Petersen (Madison); and Tim Ramstad (Colton).

It’s going to be a big weekend at the village. Com e on out for the consignment auction Saturday and for our opening day of the season on Sunday.