EnidLIVE! recently spoke to Cale Grauberger and Richard Riggins from National Veterans Flagpoles United to discuss the upcoming event Vetfest.
An aspect of the event, Grauberger is looking forward to is a helicopter flyover by Chase Rutledge with Sky 5.
“Starting at about 9:58 a.m., we’re going to have the Star-Spangled Banner sung by a local high school student there in Garber. As soon as she’s done, Sky 5 and Chase Rutledge is going to do a flyover,” Grauberger said. “After that, he’s going to circle back and come and land. So Chase Rutledge will be there as our Warrior of the Day; so we’re going to read his bio and stuff, and present the special award for being the Warriot of the Day.”
Veterans Outreach Coordinator Richard Riggins also spoke about something new that’s coming to Vet Fest this year that he thinks will be popular with children.
“We have a guy coming out of Inola, Oklahoma who has the petal tractors; it’s like the old petal cars (when we were kids). They hook up a weight behind it and see how far the kids can pull with the petal tractor,” said Riggins. “Age groups are 4 to 12. You come in and register at around two o’clock, (and) the first pull starts around three (o’clock). He said that he can run about 50 kids through an hour.”
Vetfest will be overflowing with vendors this year. Riggins is excited about the myriad of options for this year’s Vetfest.
“We have vendors on top of vendors. We have craft vendors, we have little food booth vendors with like popcorn and candies n’ stuff like that. We have retail vendors for windows, gutters, and tree trimming, and pest control. Stuff for around the house or around the farm; whatever you need,” Riggins said.” And then we have service vendors like insurance…state planning…and veteran’s service organizations like the Oklahoma Apartment of Veterans Affairs, Disabled Veterans, VFW, American’s Legion….”
