FFA Alumni Farm Toy & Craft Show returns to Colfax High School

By LeAnn R. Ralph 

COLFAX  —  After pausing in 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Colfax FFA Alumni Farm Toy Show returned to Colfax High School on Sunday, February 27.

Steve Ackerlund, president of the Colfax FFA Alumni, said between 950 and 1,000 people had visited the show all together.

Early in February, only a few vendors had signed up, but by the middle of the month, more than 80 vendors had registered for the show, he said.

The gymnasium at Colfax High School was filled to capacity with toy show vendors on Sunday.

Because the show had taken a pause in 2021, Ackerlund said FFA Alumni members had wondered how well it would be able to come back.

Ticket sales and the number of people leaving the toy show with bags of items they had purchased indicated that the 2022 show was among the best of any of the shows in the more than 30-year history of the Colfax Alumni Farm Toy Show, he said.

Event organizers also knew the Farm Toy Show was a success when the concessions stand started to run out of certain food items, Ackerlund said.

Although attendance has been down some years because of snowstorms, the weather on the weekend of the toy show was perfect, with sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-30 degree Fahrenheit range, he noted.

Ackerlund said he had been hoping that the snowstorm earlier in the week that dumped six to eight inches was a good sign the weather would cooperate for the weekend.