MONUMENT — Calling all buckaroos!

The Monument Senior/Community Center is the place to be Saturday, Sept. 24, for the 5th annual Monument Buckaroo Festival and Harvest Auction. After a two-year break due to the pandemic, organizers are more than ready to welcome folks back to the popular autumn event.

A full slate of activities, music, games and food are in store. And prizes!

Up for bidding are more than two dozen live auction items including paintings, a cord of wood, an Adirondack chair and, just in time for the holidays, a propane turkey cooker.

The silent auction features over 80 treasures such as jewelry, kitchenware and themed baskets filled with goodies to suit just about every taste or theme.

There will also be raffles for a 12-inch, battery-operated DeWalt chainsaw with batteries and charger, and a full/queen “Roy Rogers and Dale Evans” crazy quilt, crafted by Jeanne Strange. Raffle tickets are $1 each or six for $5. The drawing will be held at the festival and winners need not be present. Need more? There’s a dessert auction, too.

Here’s a schedule for the packed day:

Noon: Doors open for a taco lunch, served by local 4-H members; proceeds benefit the group. Registration will also open for bids on the live and silent auctions.

1 p.m.: Live music kicks up, as well as a variety of games for all ages — horseshoes, corn hole, face painting, ring toss and more.

3 p.m.: The live auction begins, with bidding on silent auction items continuing until 6 p.m.

5-7 p.m.: Fresh salmon and elk dinner with all the trimmings.

6 p.m.: Dessert auction starts and bidding closes for the silent auction.

Honorary grand marshal for the festival is longtime Monument resident and senior center supporter Jimmy Cole, who died last April.

Admission is $20 for adults, $35 for couples, $7.50 for children ages 6-12 and free for kids under 6. Proceeds benefit the Monument Senior/Community Center.

Festival History

Before its recent revival, the Buckaroo Festival was a long-standing tradition in the Monument community, started about 60 to 70 years ago, according to fundraising chairperson Judy Harris.

Harris, who grew up in Monument, said that in those days it was held in the grange hall, where the senior/community center stands today on the town’s Main Street. She said it was a time for neighbors and friends to gather after crops were put up and before winter set in.

“The ladies would bring some home canned goods and needlework to exchange. The men would kill a couple of old does and roast them in a pit made in the ground,” Harris said.

Other activities included fry bread cooked in large cast iron pans, alcohol spirits passed around and dancing to fiddle or guitar music, she added.

As time went on, original organizers died and so did the festival. That was until Harris and another local resident, Jan Ensign, decided to revive it.

“We needed to come up with something to raise money for the senior/community center,” Harris said.

The center’s fiscal budget is around $16,000, she said, adding that the last festival in 2019 brought in nearly $20,000, with about 250 people attending. Not bad for a town with a population of about 125.

Monument is in northwestern Grant County on Highway 402 between Long Creek and Kimberly.