Serving the High Plains

Audience participation added to annual Fired Up events

QCS Staff

Interactive shows and hands-on demonstrations will be features of the fourth annual Fired Up event from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday in downtown Tucumcari.

Some of the events from last year will expand this year and include some audience participation, Connie Loveland, chair of the Tucumcari MainStreet promotion committee, said. Tucumcari MainStreet is the event’s sponsor.

Odd Lab, the fire-dancing troupe from El Paso, Texas, that has been a perennial favorite at Fired Up events, will offer a “flow-jam dance party” event before its performance that will show audience members how to work hula hoops, poi and other flow dancing tools.

Mark Milster, a master blacksmith, will host a hands-on clinic in farrier skills before an open, two-man forging competition and artistic blacksmithing competitions begin.

New this year will be a car and motorcycle show, organized by Paul and Lisa Sena of Tucumcari, and a Civil War cannon-firing re-enactment by the First Texas Frontier Battery of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, based in Amarillo, Texas. Loveland said.

In addition, Loveland said, “We have over 30 vendors lined up this year.”

Other Fired Up events include:

• Prince Tocom & Princess Kari Contest, organized by Christine Montano, for four- and five-year-olds.

• Raku pottery demonstration by Mark Lake

• Street dance with live music by Will Bannister & The Modern Day Ramblers

• VFW Post 2528 will be hosting carnival style games for children in their courtyard.