Hemp Hoe Down May 10-13

[Cozmo]

Once a year, a local campground comes alive with music, workshops and entertainment in a festival to promote industrial hemp.

In 2007, for the first time in its seven-year history, the Hemp Hoe Down will be a four-day event, running Thursday, May 10, through Sunday, May 13, at Elk View Campground five miles south of Sturgis.

The annual festival is held to educate the public, according to event promoter Jeremy Briggs.

“It gives them a hands-on feel of the products available, so they can walk away with a complete idea of what hemp could offer people if it were legal to grow in this country,” Briggs said.

A broad range of products will be available. Hemp meals, hemp beer and even hemp milk will be served inside the Elk View Campground pavilion, and a variety of hemp gear will be for sale at the Hempire vending station. “The purpose is to get the products into people’s hands and the information into their brains,” Briggs said.

Pine Ridge hemp farmer and former Oglala Lakota president Alex White Plume will make his annual appearance and speech on Friday. “Silent Standing Nation,” a PBS documentary on the White Plumes’ struggles to grow industrial hemp, will be shown Friday and Saturday afternoon.

Industrial hemp is not the only subject Briggs hopes to address. A variety of eco-workshops will be featured in an effort to marry the issues of hemp and environmental awareness.

Topics and activities include building with cob (made of clay, sand and straw), converting a diesel engine to run on waste vegetable oil, wind and solar energy, making biodiesel, making body salve, making paper with a blender and putting up a hemp tipi.

Hemp lends itself well to the green movement because it can grow without pesticides and, with proper crop rotation, without fertilizer, Briggs said.

He added that industrial hemp would be “a godsend” for local farmers if it were legalized.

“Failing South Dakota farmers have to sit by and watch while Canadian farmers truck hemp by their barely surviving farms,” Briggs said, calling industrial hemp a cost-effective crop because of its high cellulose percentage.

But the Hemp Hoe Down entertainment is as much a focus as the educational aspects. From DJ dance music to alternative rock to reggae, about 30 different performers are scheduled to play a variety of original music during the four-night event.

“People like every style of music, and we don’t want anybody not to come because they don’t like the style of music,” Briggs said of the something-for-everyone format.

The Hemp Hoe Down is indoor/outdoor event and will take place rain or shine. Depending on the weather, more than 1,000 people per day are anticipated.

“It usually rains, so we’re doing our part to help with the drought,” Briggs joked.

Participants are encouraged to bring camping gear, water and warm clothes.

Tickets to the Hemp Hoe Down cost $10 per night for Thursday and Sunday, and $15 per night for Friday and Saturday. Four-day tickets cost $35. Prices include camping, and children younger than 13 are admitted free.

Attendees can buy tickets online or at the gate anytime during the festival.

While children are welcome, Briggs said the average age of attendees is between 18 and 30.

For tickets and more detailed information on the workshops, speakers and music, go to Black Hills Hemp Hoe Down.

At the Hoe Down

A calendar of musical acts under the big top circus tent:

· Thursday, May 10, $10 n DJ Night by Slip Disc Productions.

· Friday, May 11, $15 — Lunar Funk Theory, Tommy The Silent, Javier Trejo Trio and Solution

· Saturday, May 12, $15 — Chris Olsen, Dog War, Governor’s Suite, Juliet and Judah James, Mace, Tone Grown and New Primitives

· Sunday, May 13, $10 — Lang Termes, Free World Revolution, The Modern Day Warriors, Violent Hippie and the MadHats


Newshawk: CoZmO - 420Magazine.com
Source: The Rapid City Journal (SD)
Author: Ruth Milne
Contact: ruth.milne@rapidcityjournal.com
Copyright: 2007 Rapid City Journal
Website: The Rapid City Journal