Friday Morning: Night in the Country 2024 at The Grange in Mason Valley, Nevada

Narrative & photos from Leah Moore Wilkinson with the Pizen Switch Times:

I met Lily Hayward of Liquid Blue Events at the “Will Call” and Volunteer Check-in office housed in a converted steel shipping container on the southeast corner of the new & permanent location for Night in the Country: The Grange.

Nick Beaton and Michael Alvarez were at the “Will Call” with another volunteer who greeted me from behind bars!

Lily works with Katie Hueberger at Liquid Blue Events where they market activities, communications, and advertisements for Night in the Country throughout each year.

Lily drove up in a golf cart (with a giant cowboy hat on it’s roof!) to take me on a Press Tour of The Grange:

Our main stop was at the Stockyard where all the games were in progress:

The NITC Camp Theme for 2024 is “1864” for the year that Nevada became a state. Several camps decorated their sites to compete to win bragging rights.

The sections for camping were filled with people and their trucks, trailers, and tents with campers meeting old friends and making new ones.

It seemed that most of the food vendors were still closed in the morning, geared toward providing lunch & dinner. But the pink donut-shop was open along with Mason Valley’s Coffee Slingers for a cup of joe and a light breakfast.

The Chester Smith Sr. Family from Yerington & Vicinity were getting ready to sell Indian Tacos, Paiute-style! The Chester Smith Sr. Memorial Scholarship is awarded annually to a Yerington High School Student. Chester Smith Sr. had 10 children: 8 daughters & 2 sons, and they all work together as as a great team filling orders for their much-sought-after Indian Tacos.

It was getting to be later in the morning as Lily dropped me off to continue my NITC tour on foot at my request. I stopped in to the Medical Tent for a picture. The medics from Humboldt General Hospital in Winnemucca greeted me and were preparing for a busy day of anticipated heat exhaustion and dehydration walk-ins.

Here are some more pictures of  NITC 2024’s happy campers:

And then, as the music festival enthusiasts continued to gear up for their day full of activities and country music, I headed for home, skirting Peri’s and Sons Farms fields of onions ripening for harvest.

Night in the Country began over 20 years ago with an initial 900 people in attendance and has grown to a festival hosting 10,000 people. NITC helps to support Boys & Girls Clubs of Mason Valley which serves over 1500 children (and their families) per year in the communities of Mason Valley, Hawthorne, Silver Springs/Stagecoach and Dayton, with daily attendance averaging 500!

Volunteers are at the heart of Night in the Country. They come from over 35 different non-profit organizations that collectively earn over $80,000 for use in their activities over the next year.

Through room tax collected on each campsite at NITC, the City of Yerington & Lyon County can support local projects and award grants to non-profit agencies that apply.

NITC is a WIN/WIN situation for visitors, the children & families of Boys & Girls Clubs of Mason Valley, local businesses & vendors, non-profit agency volunteers, and more. There seems to be a sustained ripple effect of positivity!