In case anybody wants to know how I spent my July 4th weekend:
The first group of photos are of the 4th of July parade in Hepler, KS — a town of ~150 people. The town was founded by a distant relative of mine, Dr. Benjamin Hepler, in the 1800s and some of my family and I went out to see it for ourselves. We got to ride the first float in the parade which was a flatbed trailer with lawn chairs seating all of the attending descendants of the Hepler family. After the parade pictures are pictures of the annual “Hillbilly Games.” I am wearing a green shirt in the pictures I was in.
Another newspaper wrote an article on the celebration:
Hepler marks Fourth of July with off-the-wall games
There was also a rodeo held on both Thursday and Friday evenings. Here are pictures from the Thursday evening rodeo: