The YouTube Channel film crew lined me up for an interview, that hot September afternoon seven years ago this coming Saturday. Questions were asked and I was rambling on about the whats and whys of that first StateoftheOzarks Fest when I felt a strange gust of wind and heard sycamore leaves rustling behind me. Turning, I saw a dust devil, a tornado in miniature, arise on the street. I stared, entranced, momentarily forgetting I was on camera. Once it had passed, I turned back, breathing, "Did you see that?" My interviewer was unimpressed, even as dry leaves still swirled at my feet. I've never seen that particular interview online, but can still remember something akin to a goofy grin on my face.
Dust devils inspire all sorts of world folklore, some more hellish than others. I have, however, always loved them ever since my mom pointed one out to me as it was spinning itself out in an Illinois corn field. Much like high winter sky rainbow sun dogs, I find dust devils inspiring and a strange kind of good luck. To have one wander through my first StateoftheOzarks Fest was, by my estimation, luck of the best kind and filled me with the strange sense of a visitation, perhaps that of my mom's spirit giving her blessing on whatever strange journey I had found myself.
The year was 2017, and the festival began early one February morning as I sat in the lobby of Ye Olde English Inn, talking with then-manager Tracy Kimmel. The Inn had just become a StateoftheOzarks member and I was ready to advocate for all my new members. "So, I'm a member, right?" Tracy was asking. I nodded to the affirmative. "Okay, as a member, I want a festival." I stared back a moment, bewildered. Definitely not where I was expecting the conversation to go. "Well," I stumbled, "I don't know how to make one of those but if the community is supportive, I will see what I can do." Tracy leaned back, seeming satisfied with my answer. One hour later, she texted: "See you at 9 a.m. Tuesday for a meeting with city hall for your festival."
That city hall meeting — my first of many with City of Hollister's administration team — went better than I could have hoped but it was still daunting to walk out of a council meeting exactly one week following that first conversation with Tracy, having committed to our first StateoftheOzarks Fest. I am not sure I slept for the next six months, designing a single day festival and worrying and agonizing and promoting the thing tirelessly, so much so that after that first festival, I didn't sleep for some 36 hours. It took that long for the adrenaline to leak out.
Now it is 2024. Seven years have come and gone. "You've done this so many times, I'm sure the festival just plans itself," I have been told. No, it really doesn't. There are fewer surprises, to be sure, and the crowd has grown steadily each year, buoyed by graciously sunny days each time, each September Saturday we set up. Planning still requires months, there are still early mornings and long nights and not enough sleep, all to ensure some 100 Ozarkian-past-and-present vendors are comfortable and properly cared for and ready to meet the now-thousands of guests who stream through for a single day.
StateoftheOzarks Fest is such an odd critter — and if you visit the festival on Saturday, September 14 (10 a.m.—6 p.m.) on Hollister's historic Downing Street, you will see what I mean. The Order of the Red Boar fights twice during the festival, meaning guys and gals in real armor with real swords will beat the daylights out of each other just like in the old days at 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. John Jehle and his fellow historic reenactors will recreate the Eden's Cabin Massacre, a pivotal moment in regional Bald Knobber vigilante history, and the Feast of the Goblin King (and Queen) will be in attendance, meaning green goblins will frolic across Downing Street, accosting the public and giving out goblin names to the unwary. It's only fitting, of course. As the autumnal equinox approaches, the veil between this world and the next becomes thin indeed.
"Do you have funnel cake?" The question takes me aback for a moment. Images of Bald Knobbers and Medieval mercenaries, green goblins and Viking shield walls dance in my head. "We have great barbecue," I stammer. "We love funnel cake. Do you have funnel cake?" The question persists. StateoftheOzarks Fest was, as you may have guessed by now, built strangely, oddly, not from a checklist of expectations and, as a result, the day resists traditional plans. All too often, we do not have funnel cake, or bounce houses, or hot dogs. But then again, that is okay. What we do have means we can create a festival unlike any other in Missouri, all fine arts and fine craftsmanship, giddy cosplay and wild combat, fueled — in my mind anyway — by that lucky dust devil from seven years ago. And thus we continue, year after year, the fun festival, the odd festival, the strange and memorable festival, carving out our own space our own way, signaling to all that, with respect and care, you may fly your own flag your own way. All despite an oft-scarcity of funnel cake.
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