The band Highland Reign is on the entertainment schedule for this weekend’s Columbus Scottish Festival.
Photo provided
You’ve probably heard a bazillion times about Highland rain in sometimes soggy Scotland. But maybe you’re ignorant of Highland Reign.
Prepare to be educated at the annual Columbus Scottish Festival, ready to show you that it’s a plaid plaid plaid world on Saturday and Sunday at the Bartholomew County 4-H Fairgrounds, 750 W. County Road 200S in Garden City.
You bet your bagpipes that the Indianapolis-based three-member group and its folk-pop sound, one of three musical acts beyond the festival’s expected and various pipe bands, will earn its share of attention when it takes the stage Sunday in the entertainment pavilion.
In 20 years of existence, Highland Reign has learned to build a following. For instance, it has sold more than 20,000 discs, according to its website at highlandreign.com.
Members claim they will “rock you back to the old country.”
The threesome represents just one small part of a full festival schedule that includes sheepdog demonstrations, Highland athletic games, whiskey tasting, bonniest knees contest, and participants’ chance for Scottish country dancing — a big hit with last year’s crowd estimated at 3,000 people.
“I think that was especially a lot of fun for people,” said Carole Bostelman, a festival officer who discovered in recent years that her ancestry includes mostly Scottish, Irish and Welsh blood.
“I would imagine that many people don’t even fully realize that they’ve got Scottish blood in them somewhere,” Bostelman said.
Columbus resident and Scottish native Fay Stewart launched the festival Aug. 14, 1992, in Clifty Park in Columbus. It also has unfolded some years at Mill Race Park.
“With the response people have had here to Ethnic Expo and the diversity of cultures, we just thought that this was worth a try,” she said when announcing the gathering that began with three days of activities. Technically, counting the festival’s new queen contest Friday, this year’s event also extends into three days.
Also returning to the eclectic schedule this year is an artisan experience of stone carving. Twenty dollars allows attendees to do a hands-on limestone creation. Bostelman mentioned that such firsthand activities could help keep the crowd size about as healthy as last year.
“I feel pretty confident,” she said. “And for now, it looks like the extended weather forecast is for temperatures in the low 80s and sunny skies.”
That’s tremendously important to organizers because of heavy rains hurting attendance in recent years — and even a morning forecast of heavy rain for the Sunday of last year. That downpour never happened, but festival leaders felt it may have kept people away, especially those traveling from outside Bartholomew County.
Bostelman has one rule of judging a completed Scottish festival.
“I always know beyond a doubt that it’s been a good festival,” she said, “when afterward, I’m driving home in my car, and I can still hear the bagpipes in my head.”
Call that a Scottish reign.
About the festival
What: Annual Columbus Scottish Festival, featuring history, food, music and culture
When: Friday and Saturday
Where: Bartholomew County 4-H Fairgrounds, 750 W. County Road 200S in Garden City
Information and tickets: scottishfestival.org
