Sisters hosts Oktoberfest

As the chill of fall begins to fill the air, harvest festivals move to the forefront throughout the world. Few are more ubiquitous than the Oktoberfest which had its humble beginnings in Munich, Germany and has grown to become the world's largest fair with more than 6 million in attendance.

The 16-day long extravaganza garners its name from the day it ends, which is traditionally the first Sunday in October.

The Munich Oktoberfest has spawned literally hundreds of thousands of offspring that have adopted the name but have much smaller attendance.

Sisters has held its own Oktoberfest for the last three years. The event is sponsored by the Knights of Columbus from Saint Edward the Martyr Catholic Church and is the organization's major fund-raiser of the year. The money that is raised goes to charity and is distributed within the community.

The amount of money that has been raised has grown every year, as have the attendance figures.

"Last year we raised about $700, and we think that this year will be equal to or greater than last year. It was a group effort headed by Larry Labuda, and only one person so far has shown up in lederhosen," said Bob Shaffery, a Knights of Columbus member.

Planning for the feast has been a matter of making educated guesses, and so far event organizers have done remarkably well.

"This is our third year, and it is really growing. We had planned on a 20 percent growth, and from the way it is looking we probably have more than that. Right now things look really good," said Tom Miller, another member of the Knights of Columbus.

Ticket sales are one area where improvements have been made in attempting to be more accurate with attendance forecasting.

"Every year this gets better. We pre-sold more tickets this year which gave us a better idea of how much we could spend, and that makes it a little easier to plan," said Larry Labuda, chairman of the festival.

Labuda is very appreciative of the work that the volunteers put into the fund-raiser.

"A lot of effort went into to preparing the potato salad, the sauerkraut, sausages and everything else that you see here," he said.

It is not just the work that is responsible for the success of the Oktoberfest.

"I also think that it is successful because we have a really good theme going here," said Labuda.