VADER - The maypole was missing, but that glitch didn't stop about 400 people gathered together in the bucolic town of Vader to celebrate their quaint community's 55th annual Vader May Day Festival and Parade.
A car show, a 25-cent cake walk featuring 38 cakes, bingo games, a swap meet, breakfast at the Masonic Lodge Hall, doughnuts and coffee at the Vader Lions Hall, and the centerpiece parade that started at 11:10 a.m. Saturday and wound through the small downtown for 15 minutes all brought cheer to a town that recently has been torn as its kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school closed.
The school closed after voters failed to pass a maintenance and operations levy and construction bond in March. Now the 85 students take the bus to a temporary school near Toledo. Saturday was a day to forget about the closure of the school owing to safety concerns, and instead to have a bit of small-town, relaxing celebration.
Vader May Day was created back in 1952 by Lena DeAger to attract visitors to Vader. More than half a century later, DeAger's two daughters were keeping the tradition alive. Daughter Wanda Smith ran the cake walk, while her sister Diana Trahanes was central as chairperson to the parade.
"We don't know what happened to the maypole. It was stored at the school," Smith said, adding the children dancing around the maypole usually practiced in the afternoons at the school.
Smith said also missing for the first time in 55 years was any local school bands. Yet it didn't matter as the crowd enjoyed the old standards of any community festival, from kids scattering after candy thrown from the parade entrants to simply standing together and chatting.
Trahanes wanted to stay away from any bad news surrounding the maypole and the school closing. She did vow to bring back the festival bigger and better next year.
"There's more people now involved in it," Trahanes said. "Next year we'll have the maypole back."
She said more businesses were involved this year, and the crowd was larger.
"We're getting new people," Trahanes said. "It turned out real well and it didn't rain."
Michael Wagar is executive editor of The Chronicle. He may be reached at 807-8224, or by e-mail at mwagar@chronline.com.
