Boalsburg Fire Company Carnival Returns from 2 Year COVID Hiatus Memorial Day Weekend

BOALSBURG/CENTRE COUNTY, Pa — Today was the final day of the Boalsburg Fire Company Carnival, which had been cancelled each of the last two years on account of the pandemic.

Although Centre County recently entered the CDC’s high transmission COVID category once again, that didn’t keep the community from the carnival.

For the first time in two years, the Boalsburg Fire Company’s Memorial Day Carnival returned this weekend...much to the delight of the local community.

It was a rough two years without the carnival.

“When we were in high school, we’d come here, we’d see all of our friends and we didn’t have that the last two years," said Jess Watkins, with her boyfriend John Au beside her. "You couldn’t just walk up to somebody and be like ‘oh, happy Memorial Day.’ It was a big blank space.”

And members of the community, like Mary Secord, welcomed the event’s return with open arms.

“I think that the best part is coming back, getting to enjoy the food, the vendors, the live music is a personal favorite of mine,” she said.

Secord says even the little things were noticeable.

“We had a conversation in the parking lot with the parking guy, and I feel like that would’ve never happened two years ago. It would’ve been very much mind your own business, walk on by,” she opined.

But COVID has refused to tap out, as Centre County made it’s way back over the high threshold last week for the first time in months...but that didn’t stop people like Gracen Smacher from coming.

“Try to come back to daily life," he said of his mindset. "If I get it, I have to trust that we have established medical fields and things like that to help me, so I’m not really that worried about it and I’ll just continue living my life.”

Au and Watkins went as far as saying they feel safer today than they did when it all began.

“Oh for sure. Oh, absolutely," the pair said. "I mean, everybody...most people are vaccinated at this point, so that’s definitely more comforting, lot more people are educated. It’s really nice to have it back, to be able to get back out there after the last two years, what we’ve been going through,” Au said.

The fire company hopes to see everybody back next year.

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