Back in the early 1970s, when Jerry and Eileen Owens were part of the Napavine Jaycees, they helped lead efforts to create the Napavine Funtime Festival. It was first organized in 1973.
Now, after celebrating the festival’s 50th anniversary in 2023, the Owens are handing off organizational duties to the Napavine Newaukum Lions Club.
The Owens, along with Lions Club member Gregg Peterson, met with The Chronicle in October to talk about some of their memories running the festival, as well as their hopes for it in the future.
“I’m not stepping away, but I’ll be stepping down. This is their venture, and I’ll answer questions when I can, but they’ll have a new Funtime chairman,” Jerry said.
According to Jerry, it all began back in the early 1970s when he and Eileen were Jaycees members and involved in the creation of a local junior chamber of commerce. As part of the chamber’s creation, they were required by the state-level chamber to hold a “major activity” during the chamber’s first year in existence.
With the logging industry throughout the county, they decided to hold a logging show.
“That was popular back then,” Jerry said. “And at that time, over behind the little grocery store and shopping center, that’s where we actually started out. It was owned by Ron Gleason. At that time, he had probably built half the houses in Napavine, and he built the little shopping center.”
Along with the Morton Loggers Jubilee, logging shows were also held in other nearby communities such as Oakville and Elma. A pit was even dug and filled with water for birling competitions.
“And we had a contest to name the event, because we didn’t have a name. We had school kids submit names, and the winner got $50, which was a big deal then, and the winner got to be in the parade,” Eileen said.
The winner of that contest was Valerie (Surber-Gruver) Witt, who still came and participated in the festival for years even after moving to Centralia. Witt died in 2012 following a battle with cancer.
“She loved coming to the festival and was so excited that we kept it going,” Eileen added.
Though planning was started in 1973, the first Napavine logging show was actually held in 1974, and also featured a carnival, parade and more.
“We also reinstated the Princess Napawinah program, because there was a Princess Napavine, or Napawinah, as it was called back then. The treasurer of our group at that time was our very first princess, and that was somewhere back in the early-mid 50s,” Jerry said.
Following controversy over the name in 2023 after Chehalis and Cowlitz tribal members raised questions about the historical accuracy of the princess, it was officially changed to Princess Napavine. While Napavine Historical Society archives contain records referencing Napawinah along with a painting with the caption “An Indian Princess: Crowned Queen Napawyna of the Newaukum Tribe, Presented by J.W. Cutting in 1872,” Cowlitz Tribal Elder Tanna Engdahl told The Chronicle in 2023 that she was unsure whether or not the princess depicted in Cutting’s painting actually existed.
“The ‘Princess Napawinah’ portrayal in the summer festival is not Cowlitz-related in any way that we are aware of,” Engdahl said. “If the princess was Cowlitz and historically accurate figure, she’d wear finely-woven cedar clothing. In the summer, that would be the equivalent of a mini-skirt, and nothing above the waist.”
Despite accepting the old name may have to be left in the past, Eileen maintains her belief that Princess Napawinah was real, and the painting is an actual photograph.
“I went to school with Native Americans. Jerry is a quarter Chickamauga Cherokee, and two of the people on our founding committee were half-Cherokee. None of us thought anything was wrong with it,” Eileen said. “We weren’t making fun of Princess Napawinah. We were honoring her.”
Jerry said he would be open to contacting local tribal representatives about possibly selecting a new historical figure from tribal history to name the princess after. But, for now, she will continue to simply be Princess Napavine.
While the first Napavine Funtime Festival in 1974 had the logging show, carnival, Princess Napawinah contest and parade, the logging shows didn’t last too long, as the region became too saturated with them and attendance began declining.
This led to the incorporation of a beer garden, which was even used as a fundraiser where people could be “arrested” and put in a paddy wagon, and only freed if they were able to raise enough money or “take a drink of whiskey.”
“Some people, they loved to be arrested to get the drinks, and others would be arrested on purpose because they knew they could raise a lot of money,” Jerry said.
Money raised by the festival will continue to support scholarships for the princess court along with supporting other community efforts. In the past, this has included installing the “Welcome to Napavine” sign, and paying for new kitchen equipment in the Napavine School District as well as the construction of the grandstand at the school’s football field.
Although a beer garden hasn’t been part of the Napavine Funtime Festival over the past few years, Peterson stated the Lions Club is looking at bringing it back.
“We’ve been looking into re-establishing the beer garden as well, because some of the Lions Clubs have them, but there are certain rules of the state and rules with the Lions Club about what you can and cannot do,” Peterson added.
Throughout the decades, the Napavine Funtime Festival has included events with vehicles beyond parades, to include both demolition derbies and drag races down the main road through town among other motorized attractions.
“Milo Littlefield, who was our clown, we had our three-wheelers, and he’d ride all over town standing on his head on the three-wheeler,” Jerry said.
They also had an old Cadillac they bought “for a few dollars,” which they painted and used as advertising for the demolition derby in parades in other towns, called “Big Bertha.”
“One year we took it to Vader, and Big Bertha decided not to run,” Jerry said.
“We had to push it through the parade,” Eileen added.
The drag races continued while insurance for the event was cheap, but after a crash at a drag race in Nebraska resulted in an attendee being killed by a tire from the wreck, insurance rates skyrocketed nationwide. Eventually, they were no longer able to afford it and the drag racing was no more.
Insurance issues have ended many other events too.
“We had a guy come in with a hot chainsaw demonstration, and no one was using the saws except for the two guys who brought them in, but they told us ‘you can’t do that anymore, it’s too dangerous,’” Jerry said.
Now, insurance has limited where the Owens can hold festival events along with what kind of events can be organized, which is part of the reason why they are handing the reins of organizing it over to the Lions Club, which has nation-wide support.
Though car-related events like the demolition derby and drag races aren’t in the future, Peterson stated along with plans to bring back the beer garden, the Lions Club intends to continue the parade, car show and vendor market at future Napavine Funtime Festivals.
Jerry added in the past they’ve included other odd events, like “donkey softball.”
“You had to have a donkey at each plate. You would hit the ball, jump on the donkey and ride it to first base — if you could get it to go to first base,” Jerry said.
He added the Lions Club members he's spoken to along with Peterson had ideas for new Funtime Festival events, and looked forward to seeing what new events would be incorporated in the future.
For more information, visit the Napavine Funtime Festival’s website at https://www.napavinefuntimefestival.com/.
