By Robin Hunt
Thousands of people dressed in their best Melon-themed clothes and headed to Green River to celebrate their 118th Melon Days.
This year’s theme was: “Holy Cow! That’s Good!” The event t-shirts featured a cow with a slice of melon. There were many other cow sightings in the parade and throughout the town, painted on windows, or printed on t-shirts. 28 teams played in the Melon Days Softball Tournament, 80 games total! They played through the weekend and through the night.
Other events included a golf tournament, pony rides, bounce houses, wild west dancin’, the 5k Melon Run put on by the Green River High School athletic department, a pancake breakfast fundraiser put on by the high school’s FFA, vendor fair, Bright Ideas Jr. Entrepreneur market, the Melon Days parade, a trap shoot, live music by Variant X, and Outersite. There was also a Melon Carving Contest and this year’s winner was the carving Holy Cow! What a Grillin’ by Maria Sykes.
The parade is always a big highlight for the event, and this year there were lots of wonderful floats tossing candy and delighting the crowd. The float winners are as follows:
In non-profit/business:
1st place: the Green River Medical Center
2nd place: Maverik
3rd place: Concrete Aviles
Community/Performance:
1st place: Fusion (the Utah Tech University’s sing and dance team)
2nd place: Emery Band
3rd place: Green River High School Cheerleaders
Vehicle Entry:
1st place: Stick Shift
2nd place: Bumblebee (Sheena Ekker)
3rd place: Holy Cow (Sheena Ekker)
Theme Entry (Holy Cow! That’s Good!)
1st place: Emery Telcom
2nd place: KZMU Radio
3rd place: the Dunhams
Following the parade, the Vetere and Dunham melon growing families spend hours chopping up Melon right there at the park and handing out slices to all participants for free. Everywhere you look someone is taking a bite out of some delicious melons.
This celebration of melons is what makes this event so unique, Green River Melons are truly world-famous, and can be found at the Grower’s stands along Green River Main St. during the growing season, typically mid-July to mid-October.
You can learn more about this event by visiting melon-days.com or following it on social media at Green River Melon Days, and melondaysgr.
