Rock Bend keeps bringing folks together

Sep. 12—As important as its music is, Rock Bend Folk Festival is as much about bringing folks together, said organizer Steve Guse.

Free admission, a quality it shares with St. Peter's Ambassadors' Blues Fest and Minnesota Original Music Festival, makes the festival as accessible as possible.

The result is an event still going strong in its 31st year, serving as a homecoming for many regulars and a welcoming for first-timers.

In the case of two classmates in attendance Sunday, Rock Bend was more like a homecoming.

Jane Bradley and Carol Bjorklund from the St. Peter High School class of 1980 said they hadn't seen each other in 40 to 50 years. On Sunday, they caught up sitting together for the afternoon's sets at the pavilion stage.

They had asked friend and fellow classmate, Trudi Olmanson, if the other was going to be there. Olmanson, a longtime Rock Bend committee member, connected them.

Bradley now lives in Washington state, while Bjorklund resides in the Twin Cities metro. They both attended Rock Bend over the years, and were glad the music brought them together again.

"Just seeing people that we haven't seen in years is great," Bjorklund said. "It brings the community together."

The people you see go right along with the music as reasons to keep coming back, Bradley said.

As Guse pointed out, the folk in the festival's name is a nod to the community as well as one of the highlighted genres of music.

"Being able to bring everyone together is really what we're all about," he said. "The way the community supports the fest reminds us that that's our motivation to keep going every year."

Tony Kellar lived in St. Peter and attended Rock Bend in the late 1990s. Apart from the recent years impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the South Dakota resident sees the festival as an annual trip back to a place and people he knows well.

He still remembers seeing how hard organizers and volunteers worked to make it happen every year — as with any longtime festival, young people are needed to carry on the torch.

Seeing them build a stage at a farm site, disassemble it, caravan the lumber into the park and reassemble it stuck in his mind. That's the kind of work it took to put the festival on, and not all events are as fortunate to have such dedicated organizers.

"So many times that doesn't happen," Kellar said. "You bring something in that doesn't get the support and the city government doesn't support it, or there isn't the funding, and they just kind of wither up and go away."

The fact Rock Bend made it 31 years shows it does have that support, he added.

"It's for the community but also by the community," he said. "If the community didn't support it wouldn't have continued to grow."

Over at Joyce's Grove Stage, Patsy O'Brien completed a set with Dick Hensold featuring songs from their recent release, "The Welcome Companion." The duo perform music rooted in Scottish traditions, but with experimentation, O'Brien said.

"We go in with the spirit of experimentation trying to at the same time have respect for the roots that we both come from," he said.

As a first-timer at Rock Bend, he was impressed. Clearly they're doing something right, he said.

"I love to see a free festival, but more than that I love to see a good, free festival," he said. "St. Peter is clearly behind it and they see the benefit. What it says is community spirit is clearly here."

Follow Brian Arola @BrianArola