Celebrating Oregon Trail Days without a parade

Oregon Trail Days may not have sported a parade this year due to directed health measures out of the Nebraska Governor’s office and the Panhandle Public Health District, but that did not stop a small group of farmers and their families to drive their tractors through Scottsbluff and Gering from mid-morning to mid-afternoon.

“The honest truth? Because they canceled the Oregon Trail Days parade, so we made our own tractor drive,” Jim Schimek, one of the leaders of the drive, said. “It’s a tractor drive, not a parade.”

Schimek had the idea to do a tractor drive when he heard the Oregon Trail Days parade had officially been canceled. He called up Jim Neuwirth, a kind of leader of a “loose bunch” of tractor-loving guys, and they rounded up some people, tractors and flags in less than two weeks to drive through downtown.

“Yeah, they flagged me down one night and in less than two weeks we got’er going,” said Neuwirth. “If somebody calls Saturday afternoon and says, ‘Hey, we want to have a tractor run,’ we just go have it.”

They all gathered at the former Albertson’s shopping center in Scottsbluff and began their 10 mile-an-hour trek down to Gering and back to the mall. Terry Jessen acted to direct traffic at intersections, according to Neuwirth.

Many people stopped to take photos and video of the procession. Nick Schultz, Ryan Derr and Andrew Wells, other participants in the drive, said some took off their hats, waved, honked and put their hands over their heart in honor of all the American flags that were flying from the back of the tractors.

Schimek led the pack with a giant flag attached to his John Deere tractor’s trailer. Despite the fun rivalry between John Deere and International Harvester, green and red came together in this drive to take the place of the canceled Oregon Trail Days parade and show love for their country.

“I think today we got a lot of really good response,” said Neuwrith. “I think what we done was well received.”

“It was just a great show of patriotism…to see the community come together and a lot of people show respect for the flag,” said Schultz. “I just want to say we’re all proud to be Americans.”

*Originally published in the Scottsbluff Star-Herald on Aug. 23, 2020.