Swamp Fest Has Arrived

LAND O' LAKES - It was late last fall, and officers of the absurdly productive club that promotes sports teams at Land O' Lakes High School had gathered around Principal Monica Ilse, their heads in their hands.

Fresh from an accounting of the first Central Pasco Chamber of Commerce Flapjack Festival at the county fairgrounds - you know, the sprawling venue atop the bluff overlooking Pasco High School in Dade City - the group was understandably morose.

The boosters had coordinated the Flapjack Festival midway for years; it was their principle fundraiser. They were plugged in, knew the ropes and, because the community embraced the festival, it worked.

Alas, the annual autumnal event, always squeezed for space at its traditional location by the Land O' Lakes Community Center, lost even more ground when the county added new softball and soccer fields and the school district renovated Sanders Elementary, the former site of the Flapjack midway. Last May, the chamber announced, reluctantly, that after 30 years, moving to Dade City was the best of its unpleasant options.

But in its new location, Flapjack affiliates faired dismally.

"We didn't make any money," said longtime booster Mike Connors, the Mannix Motors used-car guy. "Nobody made any money."

Now, the fellows who are accustomed to funneling $250,000 annually through the club to the Gators' 14 sports teams, plus the cheerleading squad, were scrambling for a new idea. That's about when Ilse - accustomed, in these lean times, to doing more with less - proposed an old idea in a new location.

Thus was born Swamp Fest, the event that returns super-G carnival experiences and deep-fried dough to central Pasco County.

Today, as twilight approaches and lights on the Wade Shows midway begin their siren pulse and twinkle over coach John Benedetto's football practice fields, we shall begin to discover whether the Land O' Lakes Junior-Senior High School Booster Club, which organized Swamp Fest, and Land O' Lakes can make a new festival work. The festival runs from 4 to 10 p.m. today at Land O' Lakes High School, 20325 Gator Lane, 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.

Hot Time On School Grounds

The journey from concept to opening night has not been all cotton candy and klieg lights, though.

"I'm OK with it. The guy who owns the midway show has more insurance than God," said assistant schools superintendent Ray Gadd. "But not everyone is completely ... comfortable."

Gadd, Ilse and Swamp Fest organizers concede that a shiver of foreboding traces all the way to the top. But given the apparently divine quantity of the midway owner's liability coverage, what's the worst that could happen?

"Well, we could burn down the school," booster Steve Carpenter said.

OK, so there's that. But given the odds against an out-and-out conflagration, the risk-reward seems tilted in favor of the festival.

Fingers Crossing

Heaven knows the region can use Swamp Fest. Eager to put feelings quite like spousal abandonment behind them, dozens of local entrepreneurs signed up to become vendors at the inaugural event, determined to show chamber officials just how wrong they were to spurn the area.

"Once word got out, people kept signing on," Carpenter said. "We wound up having to turn vendors away. We ran out of room."

As preparations churned toward completion this week, the school's south side assumed the look and feel of a slightly downsized Pasco County Fair, minus the uphill trudge. This is not by accident. In a coincidence bordering on irony, Wade Shows owner Frank Zaitshik (say "ZI-chek") trundled 24 units - including stomach-flipping thrill rides Mega Drop, Zipper, Tilt-A-Whirl and Fire Ball - straight from the county fairgrounds, where he's also Mr. Midway, to form the backbone of Swamp Fest.

Throw in a classic car exhibition, Hungry Harry's barbecue and a Saturday night wrestling show under the lights of the football stadium, and you've pretty much got yourself a late-winter Flapjack Festival, minus the butter and syrup.

After all, with the Gators hosting Friday night baseball and softball games, the event already promises its share of batter(s).

"It's going to be great," Ilse vowed.

We encourage the public to affirm her forecast.