Featured News, South County

A Wild Steampunky Day in Dunsmuir

by Shareen Strauss Views: 521

Downtown in the heart of Dunsmuir was the place to be on Saturday as the Annual Steampunk Festival drew people back in time to when life was different and people dressed oddly but interestingly for the occasion. 

The Steampunk Festival held many different activities throughout the day for young and old to enjoy. Among the many booths that lined the street each with its unique theme or oddities for sale, there was a Steampunk photo booth, face painting, a kids’ Steampunk craft, games (including creative yoga), and play area, a pie social, a gadget suitcase building contest, a quilt raffle, but the most popular outside the great music that played throughout the day, was the costume contests. 

The bands that played throughout the day were all local favorites including The Noisy Lifters, Sound Advice, Liquid Amber, Kevin and Tom at Dandelion Dust, and as promised, Victor Martin playing his saxophone. 

Dr. R. Snick put on a demonstration and also had a booth to educate people of the times.

As the bands played throughout the day, the streets got more crowded until the costume competition drew everyone to the stage area where the eccentric, unusual, timeless, and totally steampunk costumed people emerged to compete for the win. The categories were broken down into men, women, and children. 

In the children’s competition, Grason won 2nd place, and Joseph Olson took 1st, winning a plaque, and $50.
In the men’s competition, Jamal Pautsch placed 1st, Kila Neiva from Yreka placed 2nd, and Haccovo Ledesma from Oregon placed 3rd.
For the women’s competition, Brenda Sessler placed 1st, Shivara (who won first place last year) took 2nd, and Osirah Merryl placed 3rd.

Parked just above the festival on the main street in Dunsmuir sported a variety of corvettes from a Lodi, California Corvette Club.  Vacationing at the RailRoad Resort Park, they asked if they could display their cars at the festival. Max Pedrick from Oregon gave a tour of his 2023 Corvette and all the fancy gadgets that it contains. He said that he paid over $100,000 for his fancy red dream-mobile.

Sponsors that helped make this big event possible were JPR Jefferson Public Radio, Blaze 1, Dunsmuir Dispensary, Wonderland Distributing, INC., Gary’s Pizza Factory, Alpine Realty, Manfredi’s Food and Gas Depot, Dunsmuir Hardware, Clemens Waste Removal, Castle Rock Water.

Pictures & Photos & Snap Shots Below ⬇️

Kids’ creative yoga

Kids’ crafts

Kristen Calvert stands with Dunsmuir Chamber Executive Cheryl Petty and the Chamber’s P.R. person Cynthia Henderson dressed up for the occasion. 
Taking a break from helping at the Steampunk Festival to pose at the photo booth are Linda Ginger, Sharon Adams, Karen Reid, and Len Foreman.
Linda Ginger, Sharon Adams, and Karen Reid made a friend at the photo booth; Azarah Wolibar (sitting) 
Jess Lunsford all Steampunkied out at her booth called Lazy Moon

Charlie and Kaylan Brennan from Mount Shasta holding up this year’s and last year’s Steampunk posters.

A huge variety of booths to entice everyone’s individual interest

Paul Collins and Phil Gregory look pretty shady standing with the sheriffs.
Jamal and Meshell Pautsch are surrounded by steampunk security because of their outrageous costumes. Speaking of which, Jamal Pautsch took first place for his.  
The Pie Social for the Steampunk Committee sold over 60 pies by just 2 pm in the afternoon. 
Tara Cross bought a coffin and a skull for her collection from one of the many booths at the Steampunk Festival.

“I got these for my whitchy cabinet. The craftsmanship is really good and there are some really great costumes here.”

Tara Cross
Jamal Pautsch and Brenda Sessler holding up the first-place plaques that they won in the costume competition. 
women competing for the $100 prize in the costume competition. Hosted by Len Foreman.
Judges for the Steampunk costume contest were Councilperson Juliana Lucchesia, Allison Leshefsky, Wendy Perkins, and Donna Farris.

Len Foremen interviewing the children in the Steampunk costume contest. 

Men’s costume contest on the stage at the Steampunk Festival

Meshell Orton-Pautsch said that she decided to be different this year and made her costume for the Steampunk Festival which consisted of life-size raven wings. 

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Author: Shareen Strauss"Shareen Strauss is a good writer who gets details for her news articles, taking time to get to know the smaller stories within the bigger stories."

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