A long-standing tradition that swells a small town for a few boisterous days each year, the Posen Potato Festival connects residents to their old-country roots and brings visitors from afar for an annual taste of Polish community and camaraderie.

The 71st annual festival ended Sunday in the normally quiet Presque Isle County town.

“When you come here, it’s like family,” yelled Kash Kieliszewski, surrounded by high-volume, good-natured revelry as she sat with longtime friends in the Polka on Pavilion Sunday afternoon.

After several days of carnival rides, hearty meals, the 5K Spud Run, and potato displays, the festival spilled onto Posen’s main thoroughfare on Sunday for a joyful parade, a spirited announcer on a reviewing stand describing the honored guests and creative floats passing by.

News Photo by Julie Riddle A young musician accompanies polka dancers at the Posen Potato Festival polka pavilion on Sunday.

Several floats honored the festival’s namesake root vegetable, with humorously huge potatoes made of unknown substances — or, in one case, of humans in costume — earning smiles from the crowd.

Girls on curbs extended small arms in their best princess waves toward a floatful of Potato Festival royalty.

Bands played, riders grinned, and children dove for candy, the street for a brief moment turned into a community gathering place.

Afterward, the crowds ebbed back to the main festival ground, breaking into small groups that meandered among craft stalls and edged toward carnival games.

Kids flung their arms up on rides and ate cotton candy with sticky fingers.

News Photo by Julie Riddle Polish girls Doris Kowalski, Kash Kieliszewski, Elle Rygwelski, and Pat Hentkowski pause for a photo at the Posen Potato Festival polka pavilion on Sunday.

In the distance, at the bump and run demo derby, cars with tough backgrounds proved they still had competitive fire as they raced around a track, engines buzzing.

Clergymen in ankle-length black garb carried bags of coiled sausage, and, everywhere, people sported red t-shirts adorned with the eagle that is Poland’s national emblem.

At the center of the peaceful commotion, music leaked from a large, white building.

Inside, picnic tables in rows — their seats filled with cheerful people finishing off kielbasa or sipping a beer — flanked a wooden dance floor.

Musicians on a stage on one side of the dance floor filled the open building with the one-two-three sounds of a rollicking polka song.

News Photo by Julie Riddle A youngster watches the action on the polka pavilion dance floor at the Posen Potato Festival on Sunday.

In front of them, couples whirled and kicked, galloped and laughed, breathless and giddy and not caring a bit whether they were doing it right.

Couples married for half a century, parents and children, old women and young men, friends and strangers skipped and spun and danced with joyful abandon.

With “Who Stole the Kishka” playing in the background, Kieliszewski and friends Elle Rygwelski, Pat Hentkowski, and Doris Kowalski tried to figure out how old they were when the festival began.

They don’t speak much Polish — although Kieliszewski makes a mean paczki — but, between them, they at least knew the Polish words for “How are you” and “beer,” they said.

For locals, the Potato Festival is summer’s “last hurrah,” Hentkowski said.

News Photo by Julie Riddle A couple enjoys the dance floor during the Posen Potato Festival on Sunday.

Ilene and Victor Wieczorek, of Brighton, make the trek to Posen annually and will keep coming for their chance to spin around the dance floor, Ilene Wieczorek said.

Posen resident Brian Talaske, sharing his thoughts with his feet rather than words, invited a stranger to join him for a welcome spin around the dance floor, finishing with a spin and a flourish.

Waiting for a song to start, Gus Zielinski said he sometimes attends upwards of 40 polka festivals a year.

The Posen fest stands out among the rest, he said.

Zielinski and his wife of 61 years, Gerry, want to teach their grandkids their Polish heritage. The warmth and intergenerational, everyone-belongs-here spirit of the Posen Potato Festival polka pavilion helps him hang onto and share that heritage, he said.

News Photo by Julie Riddle Children delight in a ride at the Posen Potato Festival on Sunday.

“We are blessed,” Gus Zielinski said. “I can’t tell you how many ways. Our love for polka music and dance, we’re blessed with that.”

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693, jriddle@thealpenanews.com or on Twitter @jriddleX.

News Photo by Julie Riddle Children watch as military veterans carry the American flag at the start of the Posen Potato Festival parade on Sunday.

News Photo by Julie Riddle Children scramble to collect candy spewed by a robot, created by Posen High School’s robotics team, during the Posen Potato Festival parade on Sunday.

News Photo by Julie Riddle Giant potatoes — probably — appear on a Calcite Credit Union float in the Posen Potato Festival parade on Sunday.

News Photo by Julie Riddle Grand Marshals Clarence and Angeline Yarch wave at the crowd at the Posen Potato Festival parade on Sunday.

News Photo by Julie Riddle A girl waves at the Posen Potato Festival Queen and her court during the festival’s parade on Sunday.