LEWISBURG — Bailey Quinn is this year’s Lewisburg Derby Days Queen. She was crowned during the annual contest on Friday, Aug. 17.
The annual festival ran from Thursday, Aug. 16 through Saturday, Aug. 18 and featured contests and activities for all ages.
The festival began on Thursday with the Baby Beauty contest, tractor pull, and annual egg drop. Food, games, and rides were ongoing throughout the day. On Friday, the Motorcycle Bike Night was held, along with the Derby Days Queen contest.
This year, the annual contest had five contestants, who placed in the following order: Bailey Quinn, Paizley Paul, Bella Cherry, Thelma Weldy, and Roselinda Colaj. The young girls were judged on their dress, posture, speaking voice, hair, eye contact with judges, and quality of answers.
After a tie between Quinn and Paul, the girls were called back up to stage for an additional question round. Quinn came out victorious and was crowned by 2017’s Derby Day Queen.
On Saturday, the day began with the Derby Day Dash 5K, which was followed by the Pet Contest — which benefited the Lewisburg K9 Unit (Apollo and his handler Andrew Johnson). The main draws of the day were the Derby Day Races, Cruise-In, and fireworks.
A large crowd gathered to watch the annual Derby Day races and support the youth of the Lewisburg community.
One of those racers was Olivia, a fourth-grade student at Tri-County North, who unfortunately wrecked her derby car, but still managed to have a great time.
“I just learned how to ride my bike, and it seemed fun to do the races. I raced against my brother, but he won, because I wrecked. I was ahead of my brother, but I got all swervy and then I wrecked. I still had fun though,” Olivia said. “I liked a lot of things about the race. I like that you get to be with other people. I will race again next year.”
One race observer was Misty Bruns, who watches the races with her son, because he finds them exciting.
“Our favorite thing is the derby day soap box race. My six year old things they are really cool and he wants to run, he’s thinking of ideas for his car next year. If he builds his car, he can race,” she said. “We started coming out to Derby Days when we moved to this area and we keep coming for the fun and the community.
“It brings a lot of people together, provides good activities, and gets people out for the day. We love the whole weekend, but our favorite part of the day is the races and the lemon shakeups.”
For Derby Days Chairman Park Harry, the three-day festival is a passion and “all about the kids.”
“I started in 1981 and have been doing it ever since,” Harry said. “What I like about Derby Days is, it is all for the kids. For the Tri-County North students. They paint their own cars and we put the wheels on them, check all the breaks and steering, let them get practice in, they come up and we give them all trophies, everyone gets something from the race, and they just really enjoy it.
“I don’t think it has changed a lot. We have a little different break and steering system, but other than that it is basically the same as when we started. Some of them make their own cars, but a lot of them I rent out. I store the cars, the kids chose which one they want, paint them, and make it their own for the weekend.
“We had a little bit of rain this weekend, and we had a band planned, but they didn’t play because of the rain. Hopefully, the weather will be better and everything will go good today. I think Derby Days brings a lot of people back to the town. It is a fun time for people to get together.”
