Boom into spring at Saturday Prairie Chicken Festival in Wray

    Got spring fever? Want to boom, cackle, whoop, stomp your feet and wave your pinnae? Have a hankering for face painting or petting a baby calf? Just looking for good food and good fun?
    The Prairie Chicken Festival on Saturday, April 6, at the Wray roundhouse, 245 W. 4th St., offers all these opportunities and more. The East Yuma County Historical Society and Wray Chamber of Commerce are celebrating the 25th anniversary of their first prairie chicken tour. Over the last 25 years, hundreds of bird lovers from around the world have arisen before dawn to drive to prairie chicken leks north of Wray and watch the birds’ mating ritual, followed by breakfast with Russ and Robin Seward at the Kitzmiller Grazing Association Headquarters. Division of Parks and Wildlife employees, Wray School District bus drivers, Historical Society and Chamber members, and many others have volunteered on the tours, which benefit the community economically and socially.
    The festival, happening Saturday from 10 a.m.-1 p.m., will feature educational booths and presentations by the Department of Parks and Wildlife, Pheasants Forever and Pam Coulter. Yuma County Fair royalty plan to attend, the Girl Scouts will paint faces and sell cookies, and the Wray FFA chapter will provide a petting zoo. Other vendors will sell wood craft items and homemade noodles, and the winning prairie chicken photographs will be displayed.

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