Kansas State Historical Society Goessel's annual Threshing Days celebration, 1998. A wheat king and wheat queen are crowned. They are farmers, and the winner is based on the entry of wheat samples. It's really who raised the best wheat that harvest. People mark the end of harvest in different ways.
Families sometimes celebrate quietly by having dinner at a local restaurant.
Others say good-bye to custom crews and hired hands over barbeque and homemade ice cream. Many Kansas communities gather on a larger scale for after-harvest festivals and threshing demonstrations. The Fourth of July has become even more important because it usually coincides with the close of harvest in central Kansas. In these communities, the holiday marks the season's end. If everything was going well . . .