Kansas Sampler Festival will end in 2017
The days of the Kansas Sampler Festival – which, on the first weekend in May, celebrates the best Kansas has to offer – are drawing to an end.
The festival, which was created to help Kansans get to know their state through travel, food and things to do, will end after 2017. The Kansas Sampler Foundation, which oversees the annual festival, made the announcement this week.
“I think there are great things ahead,” said Marci Penner, director of the Kansas Sampler Foundation. “The festival is like a progression, ready for the next step. The festival skills are just going to morph into another shape.”
The festival began in 1990 when the late Mil Penner and his daughter, Marci, held a book-signing party on their family farm near Inman. It was such a big hit, it became an annual tradition – held for seven years on the Penner Farm, then going on the road as host communities were chosen for two-year stints.
The festival has been held in Pratt, Ottawa, Independence, Newton, Garden City, Concordia, Leavenworth, Liberal and Wamego. It is scheduled next to be hosted in Winfield in 2016 and 2017.
Then it will end.
Penner said the decision to end the festival after what will be 28 years “is not done out of weakness but strength.”
“The festival will end on a high note,” Penner said. “Change is progression, and we will still be moving forward to promote Kansas.
“We are not coming out of a deep hole. We think after Winfield we will be at a mountaintop and leap forward to the next peak. It is exciting.”
The festival includes crafts, places to see and things to do, musicians, artists, dancers and Kansas geography. The festival is traditionally high energy and informative.
“We truly have no idea what the future will look like other than it will be innovative, dynamic and honor the strong base the Kansas Sampler Festival has been over all these years,” Penner said.
Beccy Tanner: 316-268-6336, @beccytanner
This story was originally published December 8, 2015 at 2:30 PM with the headline "Kansas Sampler Festival will end in 2017."