DELMONT -- The New Year's Eve parade Wednesday in Delmont was the town's eighth, but this year the parade and its associated festivities were especially important to the community.
Money raised at a "Simply South Dakota Tasting Event" following the parade will be added to a fund that was created for the goal of purchasing and reopening the Delmont Steakhouse and Lounge and an attached four-lane bowling alley.
Ervin Bietz, Delmont Non-Profit Development Corporation board member and owner of the Bluebird Locker, said the steakhouse and bowling alley have been closed for two years.
"We're not sure we can get the place going again, but we need for it to be open," he said. "It was a community meeting center for years."
Sam Grosz, president of the development corporation, said the town must raise $100,000 to purchase and re-open the business. Shares are being purchased through Delmont Investors LLC, she said.
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About $40,000 had been raised prior to Wednesday. Grosz and others were optimistic a raffle held at the tasting event would add a large chunk of cash to the project's coffers.
If sufficient funds can be raised, the investment group will either hire a manager to run the restaurant/bowling alley itself, or sell the complete business to another operator.
Grosz said Delmont got the idea for selling shares to buy the business from nearby Menno, which used that strategy to save the town's only grocery store.
Development corporation secretary Glendine Heinert said the New Year's Eve fundraiser "did really well." The amount raised was not immediately available.
Delmont lost Dick's Market, the town's only grocery store, in 2004 when owner Dick Strid retired. Strid, who busied himself at the tasting event serving kuchen and coffee, said he remains hopeful a buyer can be found to reopen the market and possibly restore the upstairs theater in the city's picturesque opera house.
Though the town is struggling to save its businesses, the New Year's Eve parade showed that residents have had no trouble retaining their sense of humor.
The hour-long event -- participants went around twice -- appeared to draw out all 250 local residents, though most skipped the 20-degree weather and viewed the offbeat procession from the warmth of pickups that lined Main Street.
The parade featured an ancient fire truck, several humorously risqué floats and numerous tributes to farming life.
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Vern Kraft took first place in the competition with a float that celebrated innovations to agriculture as important as the tractor and as trivial as four-buckle galoshes. Kurtz Construction's elves took second place, and a team from the Blue Bird Locker placed third.
Grand Marshal Frieda Baier, 92, braved the chill bundled up in the rear seat of a convertible chauffeured by Terry Grosz.
