Annual festival draws Czech-lovers to Wilber
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By CINDY LANGE-KUBICK / Lincoln Journal Star
WILBER — Without the accordion there would be no polka.
(Push the air out, a note plays. Let the air in, a note plays.)
In out in out … Apples, peaches, Pumpkin pie.
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Wilber hosts the 46th annual Czech Fest. (Heidi Hoffman / JournalStar.com)...
Sunday’s schedule for Wilber’s 46th annual Czech Festival:
7:15 - 11:15 a.m., breakfast at St. Wenceslaus Catholic Church
8:15 a.m., community worship at the outdoor theater
10 a.m.-4 p.m., motorcycle show
10 - 11:30 a.m., accordion jamboree, bandstand
10 a.m. - 6 p.m., quilt show, extension office
10 a.m., Czech heritage demonstrations, museum
10:30 a.m., travelogue with Evelyn Schleis-Roesler, Sokol Hall
11 a.m.-6 p.m., Czech-Slovak folk dress and art, Sokol Hall
11:30 a.m., Wilber Czech Dancers, bandstand
11:30 a.m., Jozef Ivaska, Slovak singer, Sokol Hall
Noon, meet the Czech Queens at the bandstand; Czech heritage demonstrations at the museum
2 p.m., parade, “Say It In Czech“
4:15 p.m., introduction of State Czech Queen and Wilber Czech Queen, Prince and Princess, outdoor theater
4-5 p.m., Milligan Brass Band, bandstand
After parade until close, dance with the Novotny Trio, Hotel Wilber
4:30 p.m., Ostry Family Singers at Sokol Hall
4:45-5:30 p.m., Wilber Junior Czech Dancers, outdoor theater
5 p.m., kolace eating contest, bandstand
5:30-6:15 p.m., Kramer Sisters, outdoor theater
6-10 p.m., dance with the Lonnie Piitz Studio Trio, Sokol Hall
6:30 p.m., dance contest, outdoor theater
7 p.m., Miss Czech-Slovak USA Pageant, outdoor theater
In out in out … Who’s not ready holler I.
In the shade just off Third Street, Bessie Simanek sings softly.
The blue carpeted bandstand, pushed up from the park, is filled with musicians.
There are a couple of tubas, a drum set and a world-class whistler from Hastings, sitting nearby, keeping tune into a microphone.
But mostly there are accordions, filling the thick summer air.
Simanek came up to Wilber’s Czech Festival from south of Enid, Okla., with her husband, she says. They wanted to make it once before they died.
The polka — and the accordion that makes that dance special — is so dear, says Simanek, who played 14 years in a polka band.
It’s the heart of Czech music.
“We appeared on the Big Joe Polka Show,” she says, as “Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie” comes to a close.
“That was the highlight of our lives.”
The Accordion Jamboree is a standard at the festival that draws Czechs and Czech lovers and Czech-curious hordes to the streets of small town Nebraska every August.
The musicians gather Friday night and again Saturday and Sunday morning.
Anyone with an accordion is welcome, and today the overflow players stand on the street with their flashy instruments playing tunes familiar to the faithful.
Charlie Keller, president of Nebraska Czechs of Wilber, keeps the show moving.
“Whatcha got coming up?” he asks jamboree leader David Rokusek, Wilber-Clatonia superintendent of schools.
Rokusek gives him the lineup and Keller calls it out.
“Here we go with the ‘Tic Toc Polka!’”
Czech girls in red tights and poofy lace blouses listen, alongside sweaty bicyclists in tight shorts and old men in red vests covered with bric-a-brac.
A Budweiser truck unloads its cargo.
Vendors sell kraut-covered hot dogs, wooden crafts and kolaches in every variety known to man.
Behind the bandstand, business is brisk for Czech-themed T-shirts.
“Pray for me I married a Czech”
“So Many Kolace So Little Time.”
“Bohemian and Proud of It.”
Winters in the old country were cold and entertainment scarce, Keller says, taking a break from his master of ceremony duties.
“Everyone had an accordion.”
Gregory Oliva stands behind him, bleached blond hair tied up in a ponytail and red Czech vest over Hawaiian shirt.
The 45-year-old came down from Omaha with his family Friday and slept over, drinking and dancing until 3 a.m.
“What is it about the music? Your toe starts going. Your heel starts going. You can’t help it.”
The accordion players play “Kalina Kalina” and “Bubbles in the Wine” and “Round and Round.”
Then 2007 Nebraska Czech Queen, Shandra Korbelik, gets on stage, too, looking part Flying Nun, part princess, with her white-winged hat and colorful skirt.
The 17-year-old from Fairmont plays her flower-covered accordion and “The Blue Skirt Waltz” comes out.
“I can’t be in a bad mood when I listen to polka music.”
“It’s purty music,” says Bob Mares, leaning his red one-speed bicycle against the bandstand.
“It brings back memories of the old days.”
Vaclav and Maria Mares, his grandparents, farmed west of Wilber. Every year after harvest the neighbors would come and the men with accordions played while everyone danced.
It was their music, the 72-year-old says.
Now it is his.
It’s time for the Accordion Jamboree to play its last tune.
Oliva grabs his 9-year-old daughter Jennah, who wears a purple T-shirt and purple flip flops and a button that proclaims she is a “Czech Chick.”
She has a toy accordion at home, Jennah says, but she prefers the drums.
She snuggles into her father’s belly.
In out in out … In heaven there is no beer.
In out in out … That’s why we drink it here.
They polka across Third Street.
Reach Cindy Lange-Kubick at 473-7218 or clangekubick@journalstar.com.
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