LISCOMB – The annual Liberty in Liscomb celebration brought friends, neighbors, families and visitors to the small northern Marshall County town on Saturday for the celebration.

This year, the event started with a car show on Main Street, followed by a parade in which most of the entries tossed candy to the eagerly awaiting children lining the sidewalks. After the parade wrapped up, a meal of Marshall County Cattlemen Association’s hamburgers, hot dogs and ice cream was served in the community center. Then the Hillbilly Auction was held, which had items donated by residents and everyone was invited to play bingo to end the day. Proceeds from the meal and the auction went toward the Liberty in Liscomb fund

Pam McDonald serves on the city council and also on the Liberty in Liscomb Committee. She said the committee slogan is “Just a little street where old friends meet.”

“The money is going into a fund which helps the community and promotes Liberty in Liscomb,” she said. “This year we are celebrating the Tully Beeghly family, and rumor has it there are 50 family members here today. Some of our families from years gone by, we want to celebrate them. The event is a good time. We all get together. Some towns around us join us.”

McDonald said some people might not have ever been to the almost-300-population community.

“We’re excited to have people come to town,” she said. “I think the Liberty in Liscomb turnout gets bigger every year. Not only from the current residents, but we get a lot of returning citizens.”

One such Liscomb visitor was Jim Johnson of Union.

“This is an annual thing and it’s great,” he said. “Neighbors finally get together and visit with each other. You see people you haven’t seen for years, and they come back for the parade. The biggest trouble anymore is people don’t visit with anybody, unless they see them out in public. This is wonderful to get together.”

New for Liberty in Liscomb this year was the Hillbilly Auction, which had antique, homemade and collectible items such as a Care Bear, a trunk, tools and Edison Amberol cylinder records.

“We asked residents if they had anything they wanted to get rid of and donate it,” McDonald said. “It’s all going to the fund.”

The auction was the feature which she looked forward to the most.

“I think it’s a lot of fun,” McDonald said. “And I’m looking forward to seeing everybody. A lot of the people – you see them at church, and we only have this festival once a year.”

She added there were no celebration fireworks this year.

“I think we will look into it again next year,” McDonald said. “There was a vote on the committee, and we decided we did not want to compete with the other towns, such as Marshalltown. We wanted everyone to get their chance. Normally on June 27, there would not be anyone else having fireworks, but a lot more towns are having celebrations. We want everybody to be a success, and people won’t have to decide whether or not to go to one or the other.”

Contact Lana Bradstream at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.