This year marks the 118th year since Melon Days began. The festival (about an hour north of Moab) has celebrated Green River’s desert delicacy throughout booms and busts, and still bears some resemblance to its 1906 origins. Back then the newspaper Eastern Utah Advocate described a baseball game between Price and Green River residents, a cantaloupe feast on the porch of the old Palmer House hotel while the Price brass band “filled the air with sweet melodies,” and people danced the night away to the sounds of the Price orchestra. This was all despite the “Green River people” being “little prepared to entertain a crowd.”
Now Green River is prepared for a crowd: there will be about 48 hours of softball games, a free melon feast at O.K. Anderson Park while VariantX (from Carbon County) and Outer Site fill the air with party rock riffs, and people dancing the night away with a Western dance caller at the park pavilion. This is in addition to the Melon Run 5K race, vendor market, unicorn rides, melon carving contest, golf tournament, trap shoot, and parade down Main Street among a crowd of thousands.
This year’s parade, organized by Cindy Bowerman, will honor local melon growers of the past: Dean King, Kerry Bigelow, Boyd Hunt, Gary Ekker, and Bruce and Randy Nelson. Bruce and Randy are known for rolling melons out the back of their box truck during previous years’ parades, spurring fiercer scrambling between spectators than you see among the candy-catchers of today. Local melons are prized for the sweetness they gain from the sandy soils and hot dry climate. Joining the guests of honor and the usual mix of melon-themed floats will be the Emery High School marching band and about 17 members of the Green River High School class of 1974, coincidentally matching the number of melon varieties grown in Green River over the years.
Melon Days has featured many themes over the years, ranging from the alluring (1973’s “Desert Treasure”), to the topical (1997’s “Show Me the Melons”), and the country (2004’s “Watermelon Crawl”). This year the phrase “Holy Cow! That’s Good!” will celebrate the cattle-raising tradition present here since the town’s beginnings. Local cows and horses have probably enjoyed melon treats for about as long. Robin Hunt, the main festival coordinator and descendant of the Nelson melon family, has a horse with discerning taste who always picks the sweetest crop out of a lineup to smash open and enjoy. Hunt herself likes her grandpa Bruce’s preparation: half a cantaloupe with old fashioned vanilla ice cream nestled in the middle.
Even with all this history, agriculture in Green River remains fresh. The high school’s Future Farmers of America chapter is thriving and hosting a fundraiser breakfast in the park before the parade starts. You can see the full festival schedule, sign up for the Melon Run, and buy meal tickets to support the next generation of growers at www.Melon-Days.com.
