2016 Germanfest among the best ever
ROBERTS COVE - From the raising of the American flag Saturday morning until the final notes of the Auf Geht’s Band Sunday afternoon, the 22nd annual Germanfest will go down in the record books as one of the best.
“It was wonderful!” said Gretchen Zaunbrecher, president of the Germanfest Association, Monday morning. “Both days were great. The crowds were large and amazing and it looked like everybody was having a good time.”
And organizers couldn’t have dialed up better weather for the two-day festival, with morning temperatures in upper 60s and lower 70s and the afternoons warming up into the mid-80s.
“The weather was perfect,” Zaunbrecher added.
Though there is no “official” estimate of crowd size, the enormous tent under which most of the activities were staged was full to capacity most of the time. In fact, during the Sunday morning Mass, it was standing-room-only on the grounds of St. Leo IV Catholic Church.
Attendees again this year had their choice of traditional German cuisine — sauerkraut, wurst (sausage), kartoffel (potato stew), zucker platzchen (sugar cookies, and beef stew — and authentic German music provided by the Auf Geht’s Band and the Alpenmusikanten Band.
“Our Heritage Museum and gift shop had a lot of visitors this year,” Zaunbrecher said. “It appears that a lot of people enjoyed all the souvenirs we had to offer.”
This year’s Germanfest honored descendants of the Dischler, Schatzle and Theunissen families.
Also honored during the festival were Josie Thevis and Dot Leger, who were presented special tokens following the Sunday morning Mass.
They were honored for their many years of service to the museum and to the Germanfest Association.
And the festival would not have been the success it was without the help of all the volunteers.
“We especially want to thank our volunteers for their many hours of work and all the thousands of people who attended our festival this year,” Zaunbrecher said.
Proceeds from the annual festival support St. Leo Church, the Germanfest Association and community projects in the Roberts Cove area.