GUESTS FROM NEAR AND FAR DESCEND ON CHISLIC FESTIVAL
Chislic festival once again brings hundreds to the Freeman Prairie Arboretum, but this year’s attendance numbers fell below projections
Attending the South Dakota Chislic Festival is something Roger and Wanda Larson have wanted to do since it debuted in 2018, but their schedule hadn’t allowed for it.
That was the case again this year, but a last-minute change in plans for Saturday, July 27 opened the door, and by 10:45 a.m., the Sioux Falls couple was seated underneath the big carnival tent on the grounds of the Freeman Prairie Arboretum, each with a boat of lamb chislic and a Gold Peak iced tea, blown away by their surroundings.
“This is amazing,” said Roger. “I figured it would be something like, you’re feeding people out of the back door of the community center and that’s it. You come in, you get your chislic, you sit down and eat it and go home. I had no idea it was this big.”
Wanda was equally taken with the arboretum itself; “What a beautiful park; do you hire people to maintain it?” she asked. (The answer is no; that it is maintained largely by volunteers).
And both wondered about the community; the Larsons had never been here, they said, and they came early to drive around. They asked about the population and the schools and the grocery stores and the strong first impression it makes.
“Amazing,” Roger said again. “I’ll say this; I’m impressed with Freeman.”
As for the chislic they were enjoying, that hit the right notes, too. Roger and Wanda lived in Pollock before they moved to Sioux Falls 18 years ago, and in Pollock, they said, chislic is deer meat.
Roger said when he heard that, in Freeman, chislic is lamb, he winced, because he had an experience with a rack of lamb years ago that was not favorable. But the chislic he was enjoying was — there’s that word again — “amazing.”
“We’re going to bring the kids next time,” he said.
The ability of the South Dakota Chislic Festival to draw guests like the Larsons to Freeman for the first time is a benefit to the community that cannot be quantified. Even that first year of 2018, when thousands overwhelmed the infrastructure that had been put in place on the grounds of the ballpark complex — many leaving frustrated — was a boon to the town.
That it has evolved considerably throughout its short history only helps establish its place as one of Freeman’s trademark events.
And so it was again last Saturday that hundreds from near and far made this community and the chislic festival their destination.
“So far today we’ve talked to people from Georgia, Tennessee and one from Texas — that is amazing,” said Kerry Kepplinger of Kepp’s Sheep Chislic of Scotland, who has sold the signature food at each of the six festivals and calls it “an honor” to be there.
“Some of these people I only see once a year, but we’re like family,” he said.
Kepplinger would consider Dennis Geiman “family.”
Geiman is from Scotland and worked for Kepplinger for 10 years and was a self-described “little peon guy” when his boss encouraged him to enter the competition at the first-ever South Dakota Chislic Festival in 2018.
“I’ve been in the food industry for most of my life and the chislic festival came around and he said, ‘Why don’t you get in it?’” Geiman recalls.
So he did, marinating the lamb in garlic and garlic oil and sealing it in packaging to break down the meat and infuse the flavors of the marinade. Geiman had two helpers, his mom and his daughter, and they set up a little tent and a small grill in the serving area just outside the local softball field and waited for the guests to arrive — and boy did they arrive.
“That was the crazy year when we were told only 2,000 people were going to show up and we weren’t ready for however many actually did show up,” he said. “So we were in the sticks right from the start.”
But they managed — and then they won for “Best Classic Sheep.”
“We were shocked,” he said. “There were professional chefs there and people who do this all the time. I just set up a tent with a little grill. It just shows you that you don’t have to be fancy or great. Chislic is one of those things you can do at home and do it well.”
Since that first festival, Geiman developed some health issues that kept him from returning, during which time he has developed a strict keto diet that relies heavily on healthy fats like beef, buffalo and lamb.
“Those are some of the best things you can eat for your body,” he said. “Get rid of those carbs and those processed foods; I was in chislic for 10 years and didn’t realize how good it is for you.”
And Geiman is feeling great — so much so that he was able to return to Saturday’s chislic festival for the first time since 2018. The competition portion of the event has gone by the wayside, but Geiman had his trophy with him, set up on the table right next to the Kepp’s Chislic stand, as a reminder.
This year’s South Dakota Chilsic Festival looked and felt largely like it has since moving from the ballpark grounds to the Freeman Prairie Arboretum in 2019. Men, women and children of all ages strolled onto festival grounds through the main entrance near the interpretive center and a line of food vendors flanked the northern edge of the area. The large carnival-like tent featuring beer sales and plenty of seating stood just to the south, and live entertainment took place from the stage of the Prairie Rose Amphitheater not far beyond that. There was also an area for non-food vendors, a KidZone set up exclusively to cater to the youngest of guests, a quiet and cool family room inside the interpretive center, and an opportunity to visit Heritage Hall Museum & Archives located just north of the arboretum.
This year’s festival also included the return of a beanbag tournament facilitated by the South Dakota VFW, the debut of the Freeman Senior Citizen Center as host of the bingo tournament and, also for the first time, a disc golf tournament sponsored by the Freeman Lions Club, which reportedly had an overwhelmingly positive response.
The event began just after 10 a.m. with the singing of the national anthem by Freeman sophomore Jocelyn Lee, an opening prayer by Brian Mosemann, pastor of the Immanuel Lutheran Church in Menno, and words of welcome by Ian Tuttle, a member of the chislic festval board of directors who later in the day would be joined by Marnette D. Hofer, executive director and archivist at Heritage Hall Museum & Archives, in presenting “From Russia with Love: The History of Chislic.”
By 11 a.m. the festival grounds were beginning to fill up, but even over the noon hour and into the early afternoon, when crowds were reportedly at their largest, there wasn’t the clog of people seen in previous years. And by evening, things had really thinned out.
Andrea Baer, president of the festival’s board of directors, said there were fewer people in attendance than they had projected, but she was pleased with the response.
“The morning especially went extremely well; we had a great crowd,” she said.
Baer said the heat of the afternoon may have contributed to the drop in attendance; “I know some people came and got food and left because it was so hot,” she said, “but we saw a couple great waves of people coming in who stayed until around 6 p.m., and we were getting phone calls and Facebook messages later in the day to see if there was still food available.”
She also said organizers had positive feedback about the variety of live entertainment throughout the day and the response to the disc golf tournament was especially strong.
“People were saying, ‘Have you seen how many people are there?’” Baer said. “I think that was a great draw for us.”
Organizers aren’t yet estimating attendance numbers because they are waiting on drone photos and waste quantities to help with that metric, “and we are already talking through how we’re going to make more improvements.”
As for the 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. timeframe the festival has used since moving to the arboretum, Baer said that’s locked in for now.
“We have not discussed making any changes,” she said. “We have some plans down the road that make that timeframe a necessity.”
And, as has been the case since the beginning, the South Dakota Chislic Festival is set to return the last Saturday of next July — July 26, 2025.
