SCHMECKFEST: CHECKERED PAST, CHECKERED PRESENT

Schmeckfest has been part of the Freeman community’s culture since it debuted  in March of 1959, with varying degrees of successes and challenges. But the one constant — a celebration of a people and the want to come together — remains today, and it will again be on fully display when the ‘festival of tasting’ returns this Friday and Saturday.

Interested in purchasing homemade German sausage or baked goods like kuchen and poppy seed rolls? Want to learn more about the arrival of television on the prairie, or rocks, fossils and minerals native to the area? Hungry for a rich, traditional German meal that will give you your fill and more, or eager to soak in the musical talent of the Freeman community through a provocative stage production with a powerful message?

This weekend’s Schmeckfest is for you.

All of the above and more will be featured when the Freeman community’s big festival celebrating the culture and traditions of Germans from Russia — the group that settled in what would become the Freeman community starting 150 years ago — will unfold Friday and Saturday, April 4 and 5.

The 64th Schmeckfest will begin at 1 p.m. both days, with all activities taking place on the campus of Freeman Academy, the school that has benefited from the communal and financial gifts the festival provides since it was founded in March of 1959.

“Bigger than Christmas” is how Schmeckfest has been described in terms of the draw it creates for community natives to return to Freeman, and others have said it’s akin to an annual all-school reunion for those who have attended Freeman Junior College and Academy — an institution of learning that opened as South Dakota Mennonite College in late 1903.

Schmeckfest has adapted to various circumstances and the necessity for change — moving from a single evening that overwhelmed organizers in 1959 to a two-night event the following year, to a Thursday-Friday-Saturday format in 1973, to two weekends in 2005, and back to a single Friday-Saturday platform in 2023 — finally removed from the Covid-19 pandemic.

And while it hasn’t always been easy — retaining a volunteer base to make the festival happen continues to be a significant challenge — Schmeckfest remains a spirited and unique celebration of who and what the community is.

“Very much the school’s homecoming event; just a very rich tradition that is part of the identity of both the school and community,” says Freeman Academy Head of School Brad Anderson. “I think people enjoy all of what it has to offer because, if they didn’t grow up with it, it’s something new, and if they did grow up with it, it brings them back to memories and a warmth they experienced earlier in life. I think that’s a very special thing for people.”

That experience — new or familiar — will unfold across the Freeman Academy campus Friday and Saturday. Whether it’s in the “Central Park” of Schmeckfest — Sterling Hall — the “Boardwalk” of the festival — Heritage Hall Museum & Archives — or the perfectly choreographed circus that is the German meal — the sights, sounds and tastes of both community and heritage will be pinging.

In Sterling Hall, which has served as a gathering spot for Schmeckfest guests since it opened in 2008, there will be opportunity to buy various homemade baked goods at the Country Kitchen or watch one of four live cooking demonstrations; details are included with the “closer look” published on page 11A.

Across the way to the north, in the school’s maintenance building, guests will be able to sample the popular homemade German sausage that has been made using largely the same recipe from the beginning, and buy it, frozen, by the pound.

Elsewhere on campus, visitors will be able to revisit the past thanks to the engaging collections and ongoing demonstrations at Heritage Hall Museum & Archives, which in more recent years has become a critical part of Schmeckfest’s central nervous system. More details are published on pages 6A and 11A.

And in Pioneer Hall — the school and community workhorse that opened 75 years ago — visitors will enjoy the two things that turned Freeman’s big little festival into its own version of must-see TV: the meal and the musical.

Schmeckfest, of course, began as a one-day celebration featuring foods brought to America by the three German ethnic groups who settled in this region: the Swiss, Hutterites and Low Germans. And while the menu has shifted some, and the ways in which the food is served have changed, the scent of sausage, sauerkraut and stewed beef are as “Schmeckfest” as Schmeckfest gets, making the dining hall at Freeman Academy its heartbeat.

The meal will be served from 3:45 p.m. to 7 p.m. both nights.

Musical theater that showcases the artistic side of the German heritage has also been central to the culture of Schmeckfest for much of its 64-year run. Full-scale stage productions have unfolded on the Pioneer Hall stage every festival since 1967, and over the years and decades, the musicals have gained a reputation as among the finest community theater available. That will be the case again this year as the poignant “Jane Eyre” takes the stage.

Curtain is at 7:30 p.m. both nights of Schmeckfest, as well as Thursday, April 3.

All of it will happen only because a force of volunteers — hundreds of them — give their time, talents and energy to something bigger than themselves.

“It’s quite the event,” said Anderson, who hadn’t heard of Schmeckfest when he and his family moved to Freeman in 2017 and says he was awestruck by the details, organization and spirit of the festival. “Just very intricate and involved, from school staff, students and volunteers, to even alumni who come back, it really speaks to the idea of friendship and reunion.”

And that, he says, is one of the things unique about Schmeckfest.

At other festivals, Anderson says, “there are a lot of fun things to do and a lot of unique things to see, but you don’t necessarily have the ‘community’ aspect that you have at Schmeckfest.

“It demonstrates the valuable function of Freeman Academy, but also shows that we are a historic community with a long tradition and deep roots.”