ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
Saturday brought about perfect conditions not just in terms of weather, but also for multiple lucky people in the community.
Saturday was the 24th running of the annual Duck Race Festival, and it ended up being a very good day for multiple community members. Winners of the $10,000 in prize money from the race were Shandon Gilmore in winning the $5,000 grand prize, Holly Donahoo in second place winning $2,000, Clarissa Carillo in third place winning $1,000, Osiel Arroyo in fourth place winning $500, Trae Jordan in fifth place winning $400, Miguel Gomez in sixth place and winning $300, Amanda Collins in seventh place and winning $200, and Donna Odneal in eighth place and winning $100. The Lucky Duck picked was adopted by Ismael Carillo and was worth $500. The winner of the 2025 Jeep Wrangler raffled off by the Seward County United Way was Liberal citizen Bart Osstavam, who had purchased his tickets at the recent Seward County PRCA Rodeo.
Liberal Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Rozelle Webb said Saturday could not have gone any better.
“Saturday ended up being a beautiful day weather-wise, and we had a great crowd in the park to take everything in and have fun. We also had a lot of great help from the boys basketball and girls softball teams from Seward County Community College as well as the Liberal High School National Honor Society,” Webb said. “We honestly couldn't have asked for a better day, everything went wonderfully. My favorite part was working with the SCCC students, they are such a great group to work with.”
And as Webb tells it, the day ended up being quite full.
“We actually started getting the park set up Friday, and then we were back there at 7 a.m. Saturday to get everything going,” Webb said. “Then we had the race and ultimately ended up getting everything cleaned up in the park around 5:30 or 6 p.m. Saturday, and we had the LHS NHS students sorting and cleaning the ducks up during that time. It was definitely a full day. We are more than pleased with how everything ended up, we're really happy with how this year went. This year was one of the best Duck Race Festivals we've ever had in its run, we had more than 2,000 ducks adopted.”
Webb said she is overall very pleased with the number of duck adoptions that happened this year.
“We're really happy so many ducks got adopted, we feel great about so many people having the chance to win some of the prize money. I appreciate everyone who adopted ducks for the race, and I can't say enough thanks to our sponsors,” Webb said. “The City of Liberal is amazing to work with, the Parks Department did a great job making sure the park was clean and looked nice for everyone. I also have to thank the Liberal Fire Department for supplying the water for the race, otherwise it wouldn't have happened. The Duck Race Festival is always a fun event to be part of, especially if you have a duck in the race. If you have a duck in the race, there's actually a good chance of you winning. We're still in cleanup mode at the moment, so we haven't given next year too much thought quite yet, but it'll be sometime next year when we start talking about all of that.”
Overall, Webb said, 2025 was another successful running of the Duck Race.
“We have a great community, and I really appreciate everyone who came out and participated in any way, it just made the day great,” Webb said. “We had a lot of great help and business booths, and everything came together perfectly for everyone to have a great day in the park.”
