Small town revelry returns to Deary

After scaling back celebrations last year because of the pandemic, Deary Friendship Days is returning in force Saturday, with a full slate of events including pancake breakfast, silent auction and a parade followed by an evening street dance with live music.

Organizer and Whitepine Lions Club President Karen Caffrey said the event has been sponsored by the club for more than 50 years, with the exception of last year when, in light of the pandemic, a smaller celebration was hosted by the newly formed Deary Days Committee.

This year, the Lions Club and the committee have teamed up to host the event that will feature some new items including a dunk tank, a logging show and a presentation by the Quilts of Valor Foundation, which will give handmade blankets to local veterans. While she’s looking forward to seeing who gets dunked, Caffrey said the opportunity to mingle with friends and neighbors after a challenging year will be its own reward.

“We’re really excited to be able to get back together as a community,” she said. “There’s folks that have moved away, but they’ll usually come back for Deary Day and it’s just an awesome opportunity to get to see friends that you haven’t maybe seen for quite a few years and catch up on what’s happening.”

Caffrey said the event was once called Deary’s Strawberry Festival in honor of a local strawberry farm. While that moniker has gone away, local women’s club the Busy Bees from the nearby community of Avon have continued the tradition of making strawberry shortcake for revelers to enjoy.

Local couple Tim and Janice Jones have been named this year’s grand marshals and Caffrey said the two were an obvious choice for the honor. Both are born-and-raised Deary natives and Tim has been the local fire chief “since forever” Caffrey said — almost 25 years, according to his wife.

“It’s just kind of a nice, reassuring feeling knowing that you’ve got some really solid citizens that you can depend on,” Caffrey said.

A former EMT and high school classmate of the Joneses, Caffrey said Tim has shown himself to be a calm, level-headed leader when taking charge in a crisis and has helped the fire station to thrive in his time there.

“With Tim at the helm, our fire department has expanded tremendously,” she said. “He’s gotten grants, and the fleet that he has put together is just incredible — in fact when they participate in the parade, they’re usually over half of the parade.”

For their part, Tim and Janice said it’s an honor to win the esteem of their small community. They said they’re grateful to live in and raise their family in a place where the people really care about and look after one another.

“The fire department is more or less my husband’s life. He is a very dedicated, very hardworking person toward that and a lot of people respect him, and he respects the community and the residents,” Janice said. “We just like living in a small town and the thought that anytime we need help or if someone needs help, there’s people stepping up.

Deary Friendship Days will begin at 6 a.m. Saturday with a pancake breakfast hosted by local EMTs and firefighters, culminating in an evening street dance with live music and late night biscuits and gravy at local watering hole Fuzzy’s.

The full schedule can be found on the Whitepine Lions Club Facebook page at the shortened link bit.ly/2VzyXSu.

Jackson can be reached at (208) 883-4636, or by email to sjackson@dnews.com.