Harry’s Hay Days kicks off with a free concert Friday night, parade and festivities Saturday

Truman Heritage Festival gets new name and location

By Jill Draper

Grandview’s biggest party of the year is changing its name and venue. What was formerly the Truman Heritage Festival in Meadowmere Park is now Harry’s Hay Days. This annual street fair and parade is scheduled for May 4-5, and most of the events will happen downtown.

“We’re taking it back to Main Street,” says Valerie Poindexter, city communications manager. But there’s one exception—the National Park Service is opening the Truman

Family Farm (a national historic site) at 10 a.m.-noon and 1-3 p.m. Saturday. Members of the Grandview Historic Society will tell the story of items in each room of the two-story house at 12301 Blue Ridge Blvd. where Truman once lived with no plumbing or electricity. “There’s no charge, and it’s a rare opportunity to see the inside,” says Poindexter.

Entertainment at Harry’s Hay Days also is free. The event kicks off Friday evening at 7 with a performance by The Stolen Winnebagos in the Grandview amphitheater. Concert-goers can play yard games while they listen or bring lawn chairs and blankets to sit on.

A parade opens Saturday’s events at 10 a.m. Marching bands, elementary school choirs

and various floats will head south from the Second Missionary Baptist Church on Harry S. Truman Drive, then travel east on Main to 13th Street.

Gayle Price sings rhythm and blues at 11 a.m. followed by three more groups playing acoustic Celtic melodies, genre-bending tunes, and classic country and southern rock. The final performance is scheduled for 3 p.m.

The live music takes place on one side of Main Street. On the other side is a kids’ fun zone featuring bouncy houses, a petting zoo, pony rides and bubble soccer.

Street performers will entertain crowds throughout the day; acts include a one-man circus, a juggler and unicyclist, a stunt woman and sword swallower, a pickpocket expert, and a mermaid who poses for photos (“The little girls love her,” says Poindexter).

There will be plenty of vendors and festival food such as tacos, hot dogs, shaved ice and kettle corn. Adults can purchase margaritas and Coronas—a nod to Cinco de Mayo.

This celebration of Truman’s birthday (May 8, 1884) has been sponsored by various groups since the 1970s. This year city officials are partnering with other Grandview organizations to make a community-wide event. For details see grandviewharryshaydays.com.