Full slate on tap for Chingawassa Days

While Saturday’s concert with country music band Montgomery Gentry is generating the most buzz, Marion’s two-day Chingawassa Days festival will have many other activities in Central Park.

Festivities kick off Friday with a community barbecue and ice cream social at 5:30 p.m., followed by performances by Christian artists Jason Gray and Unspoken, at 7 p.m. and 8 p.m., and a taste of country music and cool brew with Silver Bullet playing in the beer garden at 10 p.m.

Saturday will start early with a pancake feed at 7 a.m. A two-mile color run at 8 a.m. will be followed by bed races on Main St. at 9 a.m.

Kids activities will include inflatable play equipment scattered throughout the park, as well as the Kids Kabana.

Morning and afternoon will include old favorites such as a dinky duck race and Bingo and newer additions like rhino-sized Jenga and a fowl game of chicken drop.

Tug of war, dodge ball, and three-on-three basketball, heads or tails, Texas hold ‘em, and rock-paper-scissors games are planned.

An evening of country music will begin with Ava Rowland and Alyssa Lynn at 6 p.m., followed by country and red dirt artist Drake White at 8 p.m. The headline act, Montgomery Gentry, will take the stage at 9:30 p.m.

Former NFL and Kansas Jayhawks football player Darrell Stuckey will be guest speaker for a community church service at 10:30 a.m. Sunday at the Performing Arts Center. Stuckey and his wife, Lacie, established Living4One Foundation in 2012 to help people discover and use their gifts and talents in service to others.