PHOTO OF THE DAY: THROWBACK THURSDAY

This undated photo shows the line for the Schmeckfest meal extending well outside of Pioneer Hall, presumably sometime in the 1970s. Much has changed since this picture was taken — notably the removal of the Industrial Arts building on the right and the construction of Sterling Hall, which closed the gap between the buildings shown here.

Schmeckfest returns in two weeks for the 63rd festival. Here is Jeremy Waltner’s Publisher’s Desk column printed in this week’s Courier.

The smell of sauerkraut

One of this country’s biggest sporting events — the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournament — is referred to as “March Madness” for good reason. Days-worth of thrilling hoops action always produces wild upsets that bust brackets and get people talking, and this year, with national superstar Caitlyn Clark turning heads anyway, tournament action is sure to be even more frenzied.

The Freeman community has its own version of March Madness, and while that occasionally includes postseason basketball, it is mostly spurred by a little thing called Schmeckfest, one of South Dakota’s most recognizable festivals.

The annual celebration of the German-Russian heritage that helped establish this community 150 years ago is set to return for the 63rd time in just over two weeks — on Friday and Saturday, March 15 and 16. It will once again be marked by a big German supper served to 1,000 guests each night and a full-scale stage production — this year “Shrek the Musical.” There will also be robust programming at Heritage Hall Museum & Archives and an opportunity for guests to see the remarkable progress that continues to be made inside one of Freeman’s most shiny hidden gems.

While the news cycle in The Courier has been dominated by postseason sports the last few weeks, coverage will shift to Schmeckfest starting with the March 7 edition. I am planning an up-close look at the work going into “Shrek the Musical,” which will also be staged the Thursday night before Schmeckfest, on March 14, and recap some of the history that has helped make the festival one of this community’s marquee events. I will also be talking to volunteers who contribute to something that has been described as “a machine” — from those who will be working in the kitchen to others hard at it behind the scenes — and breaking down how things have changed over the years.

And boy have they changed.

Schmeckfest, of course, started as a one-day event held on March 13, 1959 designed to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the Freeman Junior College Women’s Auxiliary, and quickly outgrew itself. It became a two-day festival in 1960, a three-day event in 1973 and a two weekend, Friday-Saturday to-do in 2005.

And it was prompted to reinvent itself again following the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, which resulted in the cancelation of Schmeckfest that year, in 2021 and again in 2022. When the festival returned last spring it came back as a Friday-Saturday event, which appears to be a new normal driven in part by the challenge of finding volunteer labor.

But Schmeckfest is still going strong and will be again this coming month, and I for one am excited to both cover the massive undertaking and take it all in as a guest.

I can smell the sauerkraut already.