Hot fun in Hockinson

Unperturbed by the nearly 90-degree heat, Ashley Huff attempts a ring toss with her grandmother, Teri Huff, at Hockinson Fun Days Saturday afternoon. One volunteer estimated that some 4,000 people may have attended the annual event.

It may have been nearly 90 degrees out, hot sun pounding off the parking lot macadam at the middle school, but it seemed that everyone in town showed up to the annual Hockinson Fun Days.

"It's all general good people," volunteer Lynnette Pickup said. She estimated that some 4,000 people may have passed through the event.

At the Diabetes Awareness booth manned by Hockinson High School senior Dylan Decker, middle school students Bailey Edwards and Allie Johnson echoed Pickup's sentiment.

"You get to see your friends," said Bailey, who attends every year. Most everyone in their class was there, she said.

Beyond her classmates, it seemed that most of Hockinson had descended on the school: Grandparents, moms, belly-dancers, bluegrass musicians and elementary-age boys who had taken off their shirts in the heat and applied fake tattoos to their torsos. Most of them could be found in the Monster Truck Bounce House.

Hockinson Fun Days started about 17 years ago as an extension of the annual pancake breakfast held by Fire District 3. Since then, as the rural area has expanded to include a high school, the event has acquired its cake walk, art booths and parade.

Officially, Hockinson is an unincorporated area within Brush Prairie southeast of Battle Ground. It was settled by Swedes and Finns (hence its Finn Hill), and is home to an unusual number of churches and large families. Lynnette Pickup has eight children, but her husband says that's not a shocking number in these parts.

At the carnival and bazaar, some of those large families took up the long tables in front of the bluegrass band, though many took shelter from the heat by going inside the middle school, where Portland artist Robin Kaplan showcased her cute drawings of monsters and other Japanese-inspired characters.