GREAT FALLS — November 8th marks the Great Falls Rotary Club's annual Harvest Howl. It's the club's biggest fundraiser with proceeds going to Camp Rotary in the Little Belt Mountains.
On that Friday night the Pacific Steel and Recycling Four Seasons Arena at Montana Expopark will be transformed into a boot stomping honky tonk with a pair of Austin, Texas based bands.
“Our opening act will be ‘Dale Watson and his Lone Stars’, and he's a lot of fun,” said event chair Tom Nelson. “Closing out the night will be ‘Asleep at the Wheel.’ Ray Benson has been leading that band for probably over 50 years and I think this is his last year of touring. I believe we had him as a Harvest Howl headliner maybe 15 years ago.”
The night will also feature food and beverages, raffles and silent auctions.
Proceeds benefit Camp Rotary in the Little Belt Mountains, which has provided summer camp experiences for Great Falls area kids for over one hundred years. This year’s event takes on added importance.
“Many may be aware of that big wet April snowstorm we had and that caused a lot of damage around the Monarch and Niehart area which included Camp Rotary and lot of expense and tree removal and repairing some cabins,” said Nelson. “So we're really looking forward to having another successful Harvest Howl to be able to help out that beautiful camp.”
Advance table sales and tickets are available.
“So our website at Harvest Howl dot com is open and ready for business,” said Nelson. “And what we do during this July pre-sale period is the names of anybody who bought their table last year, tables are sort of held for them. So people can go in and grab their same table if they want to. On August 1st we open everything up, any tables that are still available, and then we'll be open for public sale.”