The 2018 Dozinky Festival was blessed with good weather and great crowds.

The downtown area was filled Friday evening and Saturday with large crowds as thousands of people headed to New Prague to celebrate the harvest, the community and its ethnic and agricultural heritage. The music coming from the Main Street Stage, the Beer Garden and the Czech Heritage Village filled the air, as did the aroma of fresh-made foods, whether it was gyros, cheese curds, pork burgers or the many Czech favorites such as pork, dumplings and sauerkraut.

New Prague will pull out all the stops this weekend as it celebrates the 34th Annual Dozinky Festival.
The Czech Harvest Festival has become one of the highlight of the year for many in the community. It gives local residents a chance to celebrate the community’s ethnic and agricultural roots, as well as the progress the community has made in the 34 years since the first celebration started.

This weekend sees the biggest event of the year in New Prague… The annual Dozinky Festival.
Dozinky has been around for 34 years now. I’ve been to all but a few of the early ones. I think the first one I was around for was in 1988, which would have been the fourth one. I was working in Le Sueur and I remember bringing my young family to the event. Josh would have been two years old and the thing I remember most was him stopping in front of each band that was playing and dancing to the music.

Just like this year, it was a beautiful, sunny September Tuesday morning on September 11, 2001. People were going about their business, schools were in session and life was peaceful.
Then everything changed.

Social media has become an important tool for many, but there is a disturbing trend that turns a lot of people off about it, and that is the anonymity and immediacy of the medium.
People sometimes put whatever unfiltered thoughts enter their mind immediately onto social media, without thinking. A motorcycle crash that happened Saturday evening in New Prague is a prime example.

August is nearly done and for me the month marks when I began working for The New Prague Times 19 years ago. I was 31 years old and in my first month at The Times I was part of two sections, the previews for New Prague High School’s fall sports and Dozinky, the city’s Czech harvest festival. Add to that my weekly duties of covering the city council meetings, sports, school activities and other events happening around the area and my plate was full.