The long days of summer are upon us, with seemingly endless hours of daylight to be enjoyed. In fact, at least on weekends, you might as well call them the long, lazy days of summer.

Locally, there will be plenty of things to do on those on summer weekends.

Consider this upcoming weekend. Lehigh River Days is back, led by an all new organizing committee determined to inject a fresh sense of excitement and vibrancy into the yearly festival. It will include some traditional staples of years past, such as the log rolling contest. That consists of people standing on a log in a four foot deep pool of water and trying to keep the log spinning without falling off. There will also be a canoe and kayak race on the Des Moines River and a parade that organizers promise will be bigger and better than past versions. A Saturday night concert will feature White Rock as the headliner.

Also on Saturday is another Juneteenth celebration in Fort Dodge. It will begin at 11 a.m. in H.C. Meriwhether Park on 10th Avenue Southwest.

Juneteenth is a national holiday commemorating June 19, 1865, which is the day that Union troops entered Galveston, Texas, and declared that all the slaves in that state were at last free. That date is considered the final end of slavery in the United States.

Clearly, Black Americans have the most emotional connection to Juneteenth, but people of every race are invited to join in celebrating a day which helped to create a modern United States in which no one thinks twice about things like having two Black justices on the Supreme Court and a Black man running for his party’s presidential nomination. All will be welcome at Saturday’s celebration.

And those events are just the beginning of the summer’s special events. Coming up on June 24-25 is Manson Greater Crater Days. And before too long, county fairs, that mainstay of life in rural Iowa, will be starting.

We encourage everyone to get out and enjoy the various special events, festivals and fairs that will be held throughout the Fort Dodge region this summer.