Photos and videos by Sandra Michaud
Gila River Festival Extravaganza 092218
Gila River Festival Extravaganza 092218
The Monsoon Puppet Parade goes down Bullard Street before doing into the Big Ditch Park
Gila River Festival Extravaganza 092218
Taking part in the parade
Gila River Festival Extravaganza 092218
Parade participants
Gila River Festival Extravaganza 092218
More parade
Gila River Festival Extravaganza 092218
The parade continues
Gila River Festival Extravaganza 092218
Monsoon Puppet Parade
Gila River Festival Extravaganza 092218
The Monsoon Puppet Parade continues
Gila River Festival Extravaganza 092218
The Monsoon Puppet Parade enters the Big Ditch Park
Gila River Festival Extravaganza 092218
Sean and Nori McGraw with little Donovan
Gila River Festival Extravaganza 092218
Mark Cantrell buys a T-shirt from Linda Hannan and Bill Stites
Gila River Festival Extravaganza 092218
Allyson Siwik of the Gila Resource Information Project finished writing up the afternoon’s events.
Gila River Festival Extravaganza 092218
Shivani Dahl-Bredine and daughter Avah Rain dance to the drums
Gila River Festival Extravaganza 092218
Little Olive Miller keeps the beat, with grandma Deb Preusch
Gila River Festival Extravaganza 092218
Erik Weatherbie, Krystal Dupree, Milo Marino, Jesse Logan Samuel, Giordano Marino and Sebastiano Marino.
Gila River Festival Extravaganza 092218
Melissa Mercer looks on as niece Amelia Mercer shows off her fish. Sister Thora is also in the picture.
Gila River Festival Extravaganza 092218
Zoe Wolfe, who created the Fish Wish hanging with her husband Steven Shelendick.
Gila River Festival Extravaganza 092218
Ryan and Kari Hourigain show off their fishes.
The 14th Annual Gila River Festival was in full swing Thursday through Sunday, Sept. 20-23 as people celebrated and learned about the importance of the river and its watershed to our area. Out of the many hikes, seminars, readings and other events, one of the most popular was the Gila River Extravaganza. The event started off with the Monsoon Puppet Parade, which danced down Bullard Street and into the Big Ditch Park. Once there, there was drumming, dancing, readings by Poetry Bread, Mescalero and San Carlos Apache dances and Songs and more. Fish Wish, a community art project, had people create and color fish and other denizens of the Gila, and pin them to a large painted tapestry.