Thousands of people turned out for the eighth annual Northern Indiana Lakes Festival Saturday and Sunday at Center Lake Park for the myriad of activities, vendors and shows. Organized by the Center for Lakes and Streams at Grace College, Director Dr. Nate Bosch said Sunday that he was impressed with the turnout. “We don’t have all the final counts in for numbers yet, we’ll have to talk to a lot of the different events that were going on to figure that out. But all indications are that this is the biggest festival we’ve ever had so it’s continuing to grow year after year, which is what our intentions were,” Bosch said. The top highlight of the weekend was the fireworks display over Center Lake, sponsored by Zimmer Biomet, he said. “It was the first time ever over Center Lake, so we’re appreciative of Zimmer Biomet for sponsoring those,” Bosch said. Some of the other highlights he pointed out were the Lake City Skiers ski show at 1 p.m. Sunday, food vendors and lake education booths. “We added a petting farm yesterday, which was a lot of fun, too,” Bosch stated. Next year the Festival is moving to Memorial Day weekend, May 27 and 28. “We think that will be really helpful so people don’t have to remember any dates, they just remember ‘Memorial Day holiday, that’s when the Lake Festival is,’ so we think that will be really helpful to draw more people here. It’s a celebration of the beginning of summer, and what better way to celebrate the beginning of summer than to celebrate our lakes. We’re really excited about being on Memorial Day weekend next year. We’ll continue to add more events, add more activities, more things that people want to come see,” Bosch explained. The purpose of the Lakes Festival is about how people can better take care of the lakes. “We celebrate the lakes, we show the value of them, that’s what the festival is all about,” Bosch said. “We just finished a study which showed the lakes bring in $313 million every year into our county’s economy, and this is a great venue then to show how we can better take care of that economic investment that we have.” He thanked all the sponsors of various levels that put together the funding needed to put on the two-day event. It takes about 200 volunteers to work the festival every year, and Bosch said the Center was very thankful for those who stepped up to volunteer again this year to “make it a reality.” The Lakes Festival started at 9 a.m. Saturday at the Central Park main stage with the Northern Indiana Lakes Duck Calling Competition, billed as the only duck calling contest in the state. For a few hours, the sounds of ducks and geese could be heard at the park, but other than the decoys none could be seen. The Center Lake Conservation Association put on the Warsaw Aqua Mile Swim Race in the lake. Participants swam out to the edge of the pier and treaded water until they were told to go. They then swam a mile in the deep waters, returning to the finish line at Center Lake Beach. The first person across was Mike McCulloch, 41, West Field, with a time of 21 minutes, 15 seconds. About 50 swimmers participated. Ongoing events, such as food vendors, lake education, open swimming, pony rides, the petting farm, and exhibitor hours started at 11 a.m., going until somewhere between 4 and 7 p.m. The Water Show, in collaboration with Warsaw Community Public Library, was held at noon and 3:30 p.m. Saturday. Chef Ken Acosta demonstrated local fish cooking on the stage in the park, providing samples for some of the public to try. The Circle City Sidewalk Stompers Clown Band – which has performed at events like Indiana Pacers games – entertained the crowds at 1:30 and 4 p.m. Saturday. The first set started out with a performance of “Proud Mary,” but they also got the crowd involved with songs like “The Chicken Dance.” Metzger’s Outdoors sponsored the Crawfish Adventure Race, with all proceeds going to Destiny Rescue and the Center for Lakes and Streams. Coordinator Matt Metzger said, “This is way different than a normal 5K.” There were two categories – easy and hard. Racers started on the beach near the west side of the pavilion. They ran along the water’s edge, over the pier and then kept running to the boat launch at Buffalo Street. The easy category runners then ran back to registration and then had to go downtown Warsaw to find all 20 Seward Johnson statues. Participants had to find each of the letters put on the statues, and then came back to Center Lake to do an obstacle course. The course included jumping off the deep end of the pier onto “lilly pads” in the water, doing an army crawl on the sand, swimming out to a bouey, swimming back to the beach over logs, crawling through black tubes with water shooting through them and then finishing the land course, Metzger explained. Those in the hard category had to run an additional 2 miles and swim an additional half mile before doing all the obstacle course, Metzger said. They also had to carry a 28-pound cinder block while finding the statues downtown. He said Metzger Outdoors was doing it 100 percent free, with proceeds being split between Destiny Rescue and The Center for Lakes and Streams. Metzger Outdoors does several races a year in the community, and this was the second year they had a race during the Lakes Festival. P4C Paddle Club not only sponsored the Kayaks for Kids from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday, but also offered the Paddle Wars. The Paddle Wars is based on the tug-of-war concept where two kayak sterns are tied together and each person tries to pull the other person and their kayak across the center line first. For the Kayaks for Kids, Roberts estimated that 90 percent of the kids had never ever been in a kayak before. P4C is a nonprofit organization with a main goal of keeping the Tippecanoe River clean, from Oswego to Ind. 19, according to Michelle Roberts, whose husband is president of P4C. She said they work to keep the river clean with three clean-up efforts a year where they remove log jams and clean up trash. “We also offer Paddle Floats for people to become members of the club. It’s $15 for a single and $25 for a family membership,” she said, adding P4C is a partner of The Center for Lakes and Streams and the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. Saturday night, the band Island Breeze played a concert for about 2-1/2 hours at Center Lake, performing a mix of styles from reggae to pop and more. The fireworks, presented by Zimmer Biomet, then started about 10 p.m. and had audiences clapping and cheering while some also were recording them on their cell phones. Along with the Lake City Skiers, Sunday’s activities included more lake education hours and craft activities, vendors and exhibitors, bounce houses and door prize giveaways. Mark’s Ark Animal Show was at 3 p.m., with the festival concluding at 4 p.m. For more about the Lakes Festival, visit its website at www.lakesfestival.org
