A rainy Saturday afternoon at the Kuehn Conservation Area near Earlham did nothing to dampen the spirits of those in attendance for the 21st annual Prairie Awakening Celebration.

However, Dallas County Conservation said the rain likely kept many people from attending and unfortunately ended the festivities early for the first time ever. Conservation Outreach Coordinator Ken Keffer felt it’s impressive that in two decades of the event it had never been cut short or cancelled due to weather. He added, though it was disappointing that attendees only got to experience half of the celebration, he still felt it was a successful event. “It was still a good turnout, you know we had great participation from the audience. We were out for a couple of hours and we were able to get the youth drummers; the Meskwaki youth program got their drum in, there was some dancing. We had the red tail hawk that was released into the wild. So yeah, overall a solid event despite the weather.”

Keffer said Conservation is already looking ahead to next year’s event, which he reminds people always comes the weekend after Labor Day. He apologized to anyone who may have planned to attend the latter half of the celebration, but encourages them to keep Prairie Awakening on their calendar.