Saturday is jam packed with lots of activities for the Bell Tower Festival.

The day begins with the Jefferson Fireman’s Breakfast from 6-10am at the firestation, where they are also raffling off a chance to win a $500 gift card to Hy-Vee and Fareway. The Jefferson Parks and Rec Department will have the Ding Dong Dash starting at 8am, along with the 3-on-3 basketball tournament at noon and the pickleball tournament at 12:30pm, both at Russell Park. 

The parade takes place at 11am and Bell Tower Festival Chair Philip Heisterkamp says the ending of the parade route has been changed. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio, the parade will start at the middle school and head north on Chestnut Street. Then the route will turn east on Lincoln Way and end at the Greene County Fairgrounds. Heisterkamp explains that this change was made due to the heavy sun shade structures that are on Lincoln Way, south of the Greene County Courthouse.

“A great way to have shade on Lincoln Way, which just gets beat down by (the) sun typically. But it’s heavy. Concrete pillars are 2,500 pounds (are) not easy to take down. Once it’s up, definitely not easy to move at all. So once they’re up, we’ve asked the community to kind of just go with us, help us leave them up, alter the parade just two blocks and hopefully make everything just as good as it’s been.

Other afternoon festivities include the Reunion Rendezvous at 12:30pm, by the bell tower with musical guest Jake Doty, along with the brew station, carnival, and touch-a-truck all happening at 12:30pm. Then at 1pm is the main act of an acrobat and performer Laura Ernst. Heisterkamp says they got the idea for this show when Ernst performed for the elementary students through the Greene County Libraries Association this past school year, but they are taking it to the next level.

“She was on America’s Got Talent Season 5 and there’s a key moment for her where Howie Mandel said that he loved her. So she’s going to come and show off what she can do for us including an aerial show. We’re setting up an aerial rig for her. So she’s going to do some stuff from the air, wouldn’t want to miss that.”  

There will also be a car show and a mobile escape room happening at 1pm, then a wine tasting on the northwest corner of the courthouse, followed by two musical acts on the south plaza stage with Exchange on the Eighth at 7pm and Dirt Road Divide at 9pm. Additionally, Raccoon Valley Radio’s Big Red Radio will be broadcasting live from the festival today from 3-9pm and tomorrow from 9am-6pm.