The Walnut Valley Festival took place last weekend.
For 53 years on the third weekend in September, the festival in Winfield has filled the Cowley County Fairgrounds. It’s home to the National Flatpicking Championship and seven other championships, two of them international.
I’ve been attending since 2003. My wife, Brooke, grew up in Winfield, and when we married, I promised in my vows to keep this weekend free.
The music is nonstop — on stage and in the campgrounds. But for me, the food is just as important.
Vendors line the fairgrounds with funnel cakes, turkey legs, wood-fired pizza — even fried rice. At the KC Bear Fighters’ show, the band sang a song about cake while vanilla buttercream cake was passed through the crowd like communion. Later, we stopped by our friend’s camp — Cynthia Helmer’s famous bierocks — for me, a bluegrass tradition.
This year, we camped with a new group: friends of my sister-in-law, flying a bold banner with an illustrated lamb and the camp’s name — Active Adult Community. One night, I met Dan Schmeissner, a rancher from Peck. He brought a lamb shoulder that our friend Seth smoked all day. By dinner, Seth and his wife, Jacque, were toasting tortillas over the fire, piling on tender lamb with fresh garnishes.
We shared bites, swapped stories and made plans for the last shows of the weekend.
That’s the real joy of Winfield — strangers and lifelong friends gathering year after year, staking out space during land rush, building kitchens, tending fire pits.
As the out-of-towners say: Happy Winfield, and I’ll see you next year — on the third week of September.
