BY KELLY BOSTIAN

This week, one big event leads to another in Wewoka. The first involves tiny caterpillars, the next involves thousands of people, and the next is long-term prosperity.

As the community of about 3,500 people prepares for Saturday’s 49th Annual Wewoka Sorghum Festival, typically attended by more than 20,000, it is highlighting the monarch butterfly and tying community conservation attempts to help pollinators into ways to improve and help their town. All while celebrating the history and the sorghum crops, holding a race, parade, and a big party with live music and outdoor dining.

Monarch butterfly caterpillars were found this week in the Medicine Wheel Pollinator Garden planted by the Boys & Girls Club of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. Excited voices heard in the background of a phone call with club CEO Shaina Moon confirmed the thrill.

“About 10 minutes ago, some of our staff walked in and said it’s just full of monarch caterpillars right now. We are thrilled this has actually gone full circle. It’s been the coolest thing ever, and now this is happening at the end of the monarch migration and coinciding with the Sorghum Festival this weekend,” she said.

Medicine wheels are essential in native cultures, representing the elements of nature, stages of life, and the four directions or primary colors. Consistent among all the tribes is the center is at the beginning of all things, and the circular outer rim is infinite, said club cultural program leader Tony Palmer.

The Wewoka wheel is planted with native flowering plants in the primary colors. One is yellow, one is blue, one is red, and one is white.

The symbolism is not lost on volunteers, as both young and old have embraced monarchs in the past year by completing and maintaining the wheel, registered as a Monarch Waystation with the University of Kansas-based Monarch Watch. A project with the Junior Rotary Club planting 36 flower beds throughout the downtown area in May helped spread the enthusiasm.

“The town has really embraced the cause to help the monarchs this year, and it was something we thought we would incorporate into the festival,” said festival coordinator Jesse Grandstaff.

He said a connection with artist and Oklahoma Monarch Society Board President Rick Sinnett solidified all the connections.

Community leaders wanted to create a mural downtown and connected with Sinnet on an idea that features a monarch and boughs of sorghum.

“In working with Rick, we learned more about Okies for Monarchs and everything they’re doing with monarchs, and we like that. It all came together,” he said. “Our sorghum festival goal is two-fold this year: To continue the growth of our town, to look forward to our 50th festival next year, and to really embrace the effort to help the monarch butterfly species year-round and into the future.”

Moon said the community’s embrace of the conservation project boosts the town and the butterflies. She referenced the “busy streets” theory and how it can help reduce crime and build community ownership and economics.

Flower gardens attract pollinators but also people who want to care for the flowers, people who enjoy walking their pets past the pretty flowers covered with butterflies and bumble bees, and, perhaps in time, businesses that will cater to those walkers by.

“I’m seeing it already,” she said. “We have so many volunteers. People come out of their homes when we go out to work on the flowers, and they say, ‘Don’t worry, we’ve been watching it.’ I talk to kids who have been here one day for a school project, and they ask, “How are our flowers doing?” she said.

The Sorghum Festival kicks off at 8 a.m. Saturday with the John Lively Memorial 5K Run, followed by the annual Sorghum Festival Parade at 10 a.m. Museum activities include sorghum cooking demonstrations, working a mule-powered sorghum mill, antiques,  historical re-enactors, stickball games, Native American foods, children’s crafts, and storytelling. Downtown hosts a classic car show, art and photography show, quilt show, Native market, and more than 100 craft, retail, and food booths.

For more information, see the festival website at sorghumfestivalok.org.

To learn more about how you can help monarch butterflies including what to plant and where to buy, visit okiesformonarchs.org.