Dubbed ‘Oregon’s Best Kept Secret,’ the town of Cloverdale gears up for its main annual event, Clover’s Day on July 7. The 37^th iteration of the event is typically during the closest weekend to the Fourth of July. Since the fourth landed on a Wednesday this year, Event Manager Brenna Sage said the Clover’s Day committee decided doing the event after the fourth would be best.

“We debated on whether we should have it before or after,” Sage said. “We settled on doing it after and someone threw in the idea of having more events leading up to it.”

Clover’s Day will feature new events leading up to the Saturday parade beginning on Thursday, July 5. Thursday features a radio performance of the 50s classic show Gunsmoke, starting at 7 p.m. at the Thomas Goodwin Gallery.

“It’s a live production of a radio show as if it is on the radio and we’ll have actors and sound effects doing two old scripts from Gunsmoke,” Sage said.

Friday, July 6 features two events starting with the Cloverdale Community Flea Market at 9 a.m. Later in the day, there will be an old-fashioned country grange dance at the Sandlake Grange from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Tillamook County’s only classic country band Hayseed, will be providing the musical entertainment for the dance.

“Those grange dances are something that used to happen a lot in years past and I think it’s something a lot of people are missing,” Sage said. “It’s alcohol free and everybody is welcome. It’s always hilarious to see all the little kids dancing because they’re so completely uninhibited.”

The dance will also be a benefit for the family of recent Nestucca High School graduate Mikayla Howard, who tragically passed in a car crash June 22.

The new events prior to Clover’s Day will lead into the main events on Saturday, with a pancake breakfast at the Nestucca High School starting at 7 a.m., the Fun Run at 9 a.m., a vendor fair from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and the parade, which is scheduled for 11 a.m.

According to Sage, there will also be many other things going on during the Clover’s Day celebration; including elephant ears provided by the Lion’s Club, a bouncy house for the kids, a petting zoo and live music from the band Countryfied.

Grand Marshals this year are Dean and Laurie Bones and the parade will have a variety of different floats.

“We’re thinking around 20 parade entries this year,” Sage said. “We’ll have the Dory Princess, Oregon Coast Dance group, the classic cars and of course Clover the cow.”

For more information on all the Clover’s Day festivities you can visit their Facebook page titled Clover’s Day Celebrations.