Arkalalah culminates in a big parade at 2 p.m. Oct. 25, followed by a light show that evening at Curry Field. The day before has many activities for kids including a children's parade at 3 p.m. and a carnival that is open all day.

The carnival sets up earlier that week, on Wednesday, but is open only after school Wednesday and Thursday.

Wednesday also is the day that 23 food vendors open their booths along Summit Street and side streets downtown. Many locals forego their usual favorite restaurants to sample the food items offered by the street vendors.

A new, one-time event connected with the festival this year occurs Tuesday night. It is Union State Bank's free barbecue bash at Wilson Park.

The event is to celebrate the bank's 100th anniversary and to unveil renovation work on the Wilson Park rotunda that the bank is funding. The public is invited to eat barbecue followed by birthday cake for dessert. The meal is served at 6 p.m. A blues group, The Howlerz, will perform after a brief ceremony at 7.

Another key event of Arkalalah and a tradition that occurs each year is the crowning of a queen, chosen from among high-achieving coeds of Cowley College. This year's coronation ceremony will be at 8 p.m. that Friday at the college's Brown Theatre. Advanced reserved tickets are $10 and may be purchased at the Arkalalah Office, 106 S. Summit St.

An occasional visitor to Arkalalah celebrations over the years is 97-year-old Dorothy Moore Harbaugh, of Enid, Okla. She is Queen Alalah I, who was crowned at the first Arkalalah celebration in 1928.

Harbaugh's last appearance at Arkalalah was a couple of years ago. Though she lives in Enid, she has a special fondness for Ark City and has said Arkalalah is a "good talking point" for Ark City residents and people who have attended the event.

Reached on the phone this week, Harbaugh said she is doing well, but she isn't planning to come to Arkalalah this year. (She last attended the coronation ceremony and was in the parade at the 75th Arkalalah in 2006.)

"I'll always think I ought to be up there," Harbaugh said Wednesday. "But I'm 97 and I like staying at home."

Harbaugh said that Arkalalah celebrations are much more glamorous today than the first one was. But the secrecy around who is finally selected queen -- until the moment she is crowned -- has remained the same.

Arkansas City resident Jack Givens, who celebrates his 81st birthday today, also participated in the first Arkalalah in 1928, he said.

He won a baby-crawling contest, an event that took place on Summit Street during the "street games" that also have become an annual festival tradition. (Street games at this year's event will be held starting at 11:15 a.m. Oct. 25.)

"My birthday is Saturday," he said earlier this week. "The question is, does anybody remember that baby-crawling contest?"

Harbaugh said she doesn't remember that contest, probably because at that first Arkalalah she was preoccupied with getting ready for the parade. "I probably was so excited I didn't think of much anything else that day. I had to borrow the next-door neighbor's fur coat because it was so cold."

She congratulated Givens on his win. "He has a better record than mine," Harbaugh said. "I never won a contest like that.