Following a downtown parade including cast members from the Martin Luther College new Gershwin Musical “Crazy For You,” music began on the Center Street stage with Minnesota Vikings house band Rich and the Resistors.

Meanwhile, throngs of people rode buses, drove, and walked to August Schell Brewing Co. for Oktoberfest. Many women wore German dirndl dresses and men wore lederhosen.

Schell’s Hobo Band performed under a large tent on the lower parking lot as people rode shuttle trolly vehicles and walked through the sun-splashed road covered and colored with new fallen leaves as a breeze picked up at times.

Before long, Kyle and Jace Marti were racing through the tent with large number of full beer steins and hot food. Kyle Marti balanced 14 beer steins on one trip. His record is 16 in one go around.

Staff photo by Fritz Busch Women display great stein-holding form at the start of the final round of competition at August Schell Brewing Co. Saturday afternoon.

Participants roared as he lowered the steins unto a table with a smile.

“It’s all in the technique,” Marti said, seemingly carrying out the task with minimal effort. He admitted he lifts weights four or fives times a week and lifts lots of beer kegs for some of the local festivals.

Stein-holding competitors lined up five at a time outside the southwest corner of the main brewery building at noon. By 3:30 p.m., five female and five male finalists who held the 5.5-pound steins for the longest time were named as finalists.

Tammi Getchell of St. Cloud won the female division, holding a stein for more than three minutes. Tara Forbord of Lakeville was second. She credited her sister Kathryn, who also competed, with supporting her.

The men’s division took nearly three times as long as Myke Hubbard of Searles and Buck Lardy of Coon Rapids dueled each other. Lardy won, holding the stein for nearly nine minutes. Hubbard put up a fierce effort, leading cheers and shouting, rousing his supporters.

Lardy tossed his fist into the air and dumped his stein filled with water into a large crowd surrounding the men.

Downtown on Center Street, stein-holding competition featured steins full of beer. Fadila Begzadic of Urbandale, Iowa, won the female contest with support from her sister. Begzadic, who said she lifts weights, immigrated to the United States from Bosnia nearly 20 years ago. She works as a customer service manager at Bed, Bath and Beyond in the Greater Des Moines area.

Butch Witte, an Anoka retiree with Brownton and Hector roots who formerly raced stock cars, motorcycles and snowmobiles, won the male stein-holding contest.

fbusch@nujournal.com