combine Sunfish Days with Salute to the 4th

By RANDY ERICKSON | Editor

The coalition of civic groups that runs Sunfish Days has some major decisions ahead. Should they require buttons for admission? Should they move activities held in the OmniCenter outdoors? Should they concentrate on booking local entertainment acts instead of out-of-town bands? Should they scrap the Memorial Day weekend for another weekend? Should they get new leadership or even a whole new board?

These are issues that have been debated before by Onalaska Festivals Inc. after previous Sunfish Days festivals. After lackluster attendance at this year’s 32nd annual Onalaska community festival, though, people from Onalaska Festivals President Lil Smith on down are saying it’s time for big change.

A few changes were discussed at last week’s monthly Onalaska Festivals board meeting, but no decisions were made. That’s pretty typical for the first meeting after Sunfish Days, board members said, because Sunfish Days organizers are still recovering from the hard work expended to put on the festival.

When the board meets again in August, they’ll have a major proposal to chew on. Dave Skogen, a lifelong Onalaska resident whose family owns a chain of Festival Foods that started in Onalaska, has asked the board to consider making some major changes in Sunfish Days. Those changes include giving it a new name and moving it to coincide with the Festival Foods Salute to the Fourth, held the last Sunday in June.

The Salute to the Fourth, with its pops concert by the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra and fireworks show by the La Crosse Skyrockers, routinely draws 7,000 to 10,000 people for the one-day event. Attaching Onalaska’s annual community festival to the event could revitalize Sunfish Days, Skogen said, giving the event a built-in big finish.

Skogen did not attend the Onalaska Festivals board meeting last week but sent a letter to Smith outlining some possible changes. The letter to Smith did not include a suggestion for a date change but in an interview Monday, Skogen floated the date changes as an option worth looking into.

“We’ve got to kind of reinvent what we’re doing,” Skogen said, and that reinvention should include more involvement from the community in creating a family friendly festival. “What we’ve got is broke.”

Festival organizers were at a loss to explain why more people didn’t come out this year for Sunfish Days activities at the OmniCenter. Some have suggested that the Memorial Day weekend is too busy with graduation and other activities, although others note that Sunfish Days had many years of drawing big crowds on Memorial Day weekend.

Others say moving the festivities in the mid-1990s from the Onalaska American Legion grounds to the OmniCenter was the beginning of the end, taking the festival from a central location and putting it on the edge of town in a cavernous hall.

“People are saying, ‘I want to go in a beer tent, I don’t want to go in a hockey arena,’” said Mike Fries, who represents the Legion on the Onalaska Festivals board. “I’ve always liked Sunfish Days. ... It’s a good thing for the city of Onalaska but we need to figure out how to change it.”

Fries and others also think it might be time to do away with button sales. The buttons brought in a profit of more than $2,000 this year, but some think they also kept people from coming to the OmniCenter to take in the entertainment offerings, which would erode profits from beverage and food sales.

Profits play a big role in Sunfish Days as the event has served as a big fundraiser for the civic groups involved, including the Legion, Legion Auxiliary, Sons of the American Legion, Lions Club, Rotary Club and Jaycees.

This year it’s looking like the clubs won’t get any money out of Sunfish Days for the third time since 2000, and getting a payback is important, said Fries.

“It goes a long way in getting people to volunteer to help,” Fries said. “I hear over and over again, ‘We never get anything out of it.’”

On the other hand, Skogen suggested that maybe making money from the community’s celebration isn’t the most important thing. Skogen also said Sunfish Days might put too much emphasis on entertainment and not enough on activities that promote community fellowship and connections.

A revamped community celebration could use a new name, too, Skogen said, and he suggested calling it something like “Celebrate Onalaska.” “The objective is to have a community celebration,” he said. “What’s ‘sunfish’ about this thing? It’s celebrating Onalaska is what it’s doing.”

One thing that might help is if Onalaska’s community celebration had a signature food attraction, like Oktoberfest has brats and Holmen’s Kornfest has corn. Skogen said he went to Madison over the Memorial Day weekend and visited Bratfest. “The interesting thing was there was very little beer,” he said.

Skogen also suggested that the festival needs more food vendors, and his company might be in a position to help find and procure such vendors. “There’s no excuse for not having great food,” he said.

One possible problem with moving the festival to coincide with Salute to the Fourth is it could overlap with La Crosse’s Riverfest. This year there wouldn’t be a problem as the Salute to the Fourth is on June 29 and Riverfest runs July 2-6. There have been times, however, when Riverfest has started on the last weekend of June and ended on July 4, and the Onalaska Lions Club members have traditionally worked at Riverfest.

Although Skogen would like to see less emphasis on beer consumption, moving Sunfish Days to the school soccer fields on Riders Club Road or the JV baseball fields near the YMCA wouldn’t preclude erection of a beer tent. Contrary to popular assumption, the school district could grant permission to allow consumption of alcohol on school property, according to district Superintendent John Burnett.

After researching school board policy and state statute, Burnett said he has the authority to allow alcohol consumption on school property as long as it doesn’t conflict with other school board policies. The board, however, would have to approve any exemptions to the no-smoking policy on school grounds, and any decisions on allowing a weekend-long festival on the school property would have to consider potential damage to the soccer fields, Burnett said.

A trainload of good ideas for revamping Sunfish Days would be worthless, though, unless there is leadership in place committed to executing the changes. “You may need a totally new board/committee for big change to occur,” Skogen suggested in his letter to Smith. “This might be difficult for some to accept because people don’t like change.”

Onalaska Festivals board members also suggested that the current board leadership is resistant to change. “We discuss things and then we just never change anything,” said Eunice Johnson, the board’s treasurer and a board member since 1981.

“There’s people on there that just aren’t going to change, and that’s part of the problem of Sunfish Days,” Fries said. “I’m afraid Sunfish Days is so far down the road that nobody wants to be associated with them anymore. ... It doesn’t look real promising for Sunfish Days, real dismal unless they make some changes.”

Smith was unanimously re-elected as Onalaska Festivals president at last week’s board meeting, but nobody stepped forward to serve as vice president/membership director. That’s a key position responsible for soliciting and collecting donations from businesses for Sunfish Days, which accounts for one of the largest portions of the festival’s income.

Smith told the board that she would quit unless somebody took on the membership director position. “I can’t do both jobs. I need somebody else to do the other job,” Smith said. “Nobody wants the president’s job, either. They know that it’s a headache. Basically, what you’re doing is you’re giving up your social life.”

Fries opposition to Smith’s leadership comes as no surprise to her. “Mike has a very negative attitude. He has a history of putting down Sunfish Days,” Smith said. “That’s what we’ve been fighting against. That’s what makes it hard. ... If we work as a team, we can accomplish this thing.”

Contact Randy Erickson at randy.erickson@lee.net or 786-6812.