Biggest Yet: Thousands attend Elk City's Kiwanis Karnival

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Published on Monday, 06 February 2012 13:19

Dale Denwalt 
Daily Elk Citian

The Elk City chapter of Kiwanis is celebrating their recent Kiwanis Kids Karnival.

President Danny Ringer doesn't know which year had the largest number of attendees, and he doesn't know when the Karnival first started. But this year was good, he said.

"We had probably one of the largest turnouts we've ever had," said Ringer. "I talked to Eddie Moore, who's been a member of the club for 51 years now, and we were doing this before he joined so we're probably around our 60th year of doing the Kiwanis Karnival."

The Karnival moved indoors to the Elk City Civic Center in the mid-1980s. Area residents, many of them children, came to play the various games that were set up and staffed by Kiwanians and other volunteers. Among the games were toy crossbow shooting, Plinko, a Dr Pepper ring toss, basketball shooting and skeeball.

"It was a great crowd. People really enjoyed themselves and I've had tons of positive reinforcement yesterday and today from people that had a great time with their families," Ringer said.

There was no headcount of people who came to the Karnival.

"We really don't count the number of people that come through the doors, but we use those little tickets, so it was in the thousands," he said.

The Karnival is the club's major fundraiser of the year. The organization dedicates its volunteer time to helping children. 

At this year's Karnival, Elk City businesses helped sell tickets to the event.

"We appreciate all the businesses that help, and we have so many people that help us to make this Karnival event happen," said Ringer. "It's what we use for scholarships. We use it to contribute to other organizations that help children."

Two groups helped Kiwanis staff the Karnival. The Elk City High School Key Club, the high school version of Kiwanis, helped, along with the football team.

"We appreciate coach Scheck and all they did, and we appreciate the Key Club," Ringer said.

When the Karnival returns next year, it will pretty much remain the same, he said.

"We just have enough room for exactly what we're doing," said Ringer. "We tried an inflatable moon bounce but it wasn't tall enough. Then we tried a slide, and then it wasn't tall enough, so we didn't use either one of them."

Ringer also thanked the Chamber of Commerce for allowing Kiwanis to use the Civic Center.

"There is a lot of work into putting that together," he said.