Barbara Langston writes concerning Mule Days:

Just for fun here's a tiny bit of Mule Days history, from just one of the many first participants.
Lona and Gene Burkhart put my ex-husband and me in their string as the "dudes," or the customers being packed into the mountains.

They had been in a lot of parades and were very meticulous about cleaning and polishing their tack and grooming their animals. It was interesting to see the difference of the ones who had only "worked" their animals - they weren't washed, and some not even brushed. But ready for work!

Gene forgot to put us on his entry form as the dudes, and as we went by the announcer's booth, he read off who was who from which pack station, and then looked up and saw us.

Hegot kind of flustered and said into the microphone, "And here come some others in their string, but I don't know who they are."

Like the absolute greenhorn that I was, I shouted out, "We're the dudes." The announcer looked startled, and said, "What?" So I shouted it out again. A moment of discomfort all around and he simply went on.

Boy howdy, I'll tell you what, Gene was probably about as mad as he ever got with me because you do not talk to the judges or the announcers when a parade has started. I didn't know!

So much planning went into that first little event, and yet it was little, and about half of the participants wer rather unprofessional looking. Nowadays I think it is one of the most professional and glorious parades with events following in the country.

July 2021