News : Vinton Farmers Market Season ends; balloon winners honored

Customers browse among pumpkins and other fresh produce at the last Vinton Farmer's Market of 2001.

Duane Randall blows the imitation train whistle to start the Farmer's Market Thursday evening.

The Vinton Parks & Recreation Department Farmer’s market season had its last night on Thursday, September 29th. Appropriately it was one of the windiest nights in market history with the summer that we have endured this year in Vinton.

The VPRD is very thankful for all of the great vendors that participated this season and of course to all of you that came out weekly to support those vendors. The market was a lot of fun and always a great social atmosphere for all of us that were there for the past eighteen weeks. We had some great times with different special events throughout the year starting with the Schmidt Family Band to announcing our balloon launch winners on the final night.

Speaking of the Balloon Launch winners, we did have 4 cards returned from our 102 balloons that left the market on June 2nd. That may not seem like a lot but really it is when you consider all of the places that card could land between here and China. Listed below are the winners whose balloon came back and where it came back from:

John McNeill East 4th Street – Vinton

Sally Jacobs Bernard, IA (by Dubuque)

Annabelle DuCharme Hopkinton, IA (southeast of Manchester)

Marion Moser Coggon, IA (south of Manchester)

Winners received a variety of goodies in a nice farmers market bag and the card finders will also receive a gift from the market. In case you were wondering, to date, the farthest balloon on record was returned from the Chicago area a few years ago.

If you have any questions about the market or are interested in becoming a vendor for next year, contact the VPRD at 472-4164. You can also visit our website at vprdzone.com for weekly activities and vendor registration forms.