ROCHELLE – The Creston Booster Club held the 63rd Booster Days Festival this past weekend.
The first day of the festival was successful as well as the Friday night steak fry. The event was very well attended, selling a total of 90 steaks and featuring live music from the Rochelle Township High School jazz band.
Saturday, thanks to good weather, festival-goers enjoyed the kiddie parade, mud volleyball, the carnival and fireworks.
“The fireworks Saturday night were out of this world, they were just absolutely fantastic, probably the best display we have had this far,” committee chairman Ken Stoll said.
While the first two days experienced perfect weather and everything went according to plan, festival organizers had to make some last-minute changes Sunday due to the weather. The carnival and the tractor pull had to be canceled, but the parade was still able to take place during a window of good weather.
While the weather caused for some of the activities to be canceled, the pork chop BBQ and the live bands Sunday were modified but continued to be held. The BBQ was moved to Booster Hall and the bands were set up at the end of the street on a flatbed trailer.

Certain parts of the festival had to be altered, but organizers can’t thank the community enough for coming together to make this happen no matter the weather.
“On Sunday when we had to move the kitchen, we had people that we didn’t even know coming up asking if there was anything they could do to help, which really made for good community spirit,” Stoll said.
New this year was the beer garden, which the booster club hopes to have return next year as well.
The Creston Booster Days festival is held for the community to come out and have a good time, but it also aims to help raise funds for the Creston Booster Club, which is a 501 C3 charitable organization. The club focuses on enhancing the community through donations to the library, school or any other organization, along with hosting different events throughout the year.
Some upcoming club events include a play in October that will be announced in the next few weeks, turkey bingo in November and a Christmas walk and shop around the holidays.
While the Creston Booster Club helped organize the festival, they could not have done it without the community and all of the sponsors.
“I would just like to once again thank everyone involved in it, it took a village plus more and they all came out and helped. I don’t think I deserve anything at all, it was the community,” Stoll added.