A crowd gathers in Faribault’s Central Park for a concert by the Mankato Area Community Band. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
I EXPECTED AN EVENING of patriotic music performed by the Mankato Area Community Band, the group’s usual playlist during their annual summer show in Faribault. Instead, the band surprised the audience gathered June 25 in Central Park with a mix of patriotic, comedic and even feline-centric songs. Plus more.
The Mankato Area Community Band performs in the Central Park Bandshell. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
I’m a fan of this band, which opened their free 7 p.m. Concerts in the Park performance with the “Star Spangled Banner,” followed by a song celebrating our nation’s 250th birthday. They ended the hour-long show with a rousing version of “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”
Stephanie Thorpe, in furry cat ears, meows. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
In between, though, they played a variety of music. Singers Stephanie Thorpe and Barbara Dunker meowed their way through “A Comic Duet for Two Cats,” complete in cat ears. They hammed it up, obviously having fun with the piece.
TheLime Jell-O Marshmallow Cottage Cheese SurpriseSalad revealed to the audience during the concert. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
But it was was their role as church ladies singing composer William Bolcom’s “Lime Jell-O Marshmallow Cottage Cheese Surprise” that got the audience laughing, especially when the foil-covered salad was unveiled on the bandshell stage. That elevation of the salad reminds me of shows by the Looney Lutherans and the Church Basement Ladies, popular theatrical groups in Minnesota. It also reminds me of Jell-O salads my mom (and other women of her era) made for holiday meals or potlucks. I never cared for mayonnaise, carrots, celery, nuts or such in gelatin. Bananas in red Jell-O, yes.
The “church ladies,” Stephanie Thorpe, left, and Barbara Dunker, right, pose with their salad prop. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
I caught the Mankato church ladies just after they exited the stage, grabbing a portrait of them with their infamous salad before they ducked into an equipment trailer/makeshift dressing room and changed into costumes for their next song. They were on the move in this high-energy show.
Mom and daughter relax on an inflatable lounger while listening to the music. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
This dog’s owners got him in the spirit with a patriotic scarf. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
A family looks at a How to Draw Farm Animals book while at the concert. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
I continued to roam the park with my camera—people-watching, dog-watching, watching for anything that might tell a story about these weekly summer concerts that have become a community staple.
Central Park in Faribault, a beautiful natural setting for sommer concerts. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
For decades I’ve enjoyed many a beautiful Thursday summer evening of music and conversation at this concert series. All ages come here, settle into lawn chairs, park on benches, lounge on blankets laid upon the grass under a canopy of trees.
Band members play. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
Singer Barbara Dunker performs with the Mankato Area Community Band. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
The band photographed from a bandshell side door. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
As the sun lowers, shadows across Central Park, the music plays on. Kids play. Adults listen. Some read. Dogs nestle on laps or in the grass. It’s an almost Normal Rockwell-like scene. Americana.
American flags and patriotic decor decorated the bandshell area. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
“Amazing Grace” quiets the spirit. A song about lime Jell-O brings laughter. And patriotic songs spark a sense of gratitude for America, on the cusp of celebrating its 250th birthday in this, “the land of the free and home of the brave.”
While the Faribault Parks and Recreation concerts are free, donation boxes are sometimes set out to support performers. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
FYI: Faribault Concerts in the Park run through August. Next up is the Ya Ya Boys playing a mix of blues, old time rock n roll, outlaw country and Americana on July 2. Little Chicago, a cover band for hits of the 60s and 70s, performs on July 9.
The Rev. Penny Bonsell of Little Prairie United Methodist Church, in the background, welcomes the crowd and introduces the Old Country Boys at a June 10 concert. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
HEAT AND HUMIDITY gave way to a lovely evening on the prairie. Here, on a grassy space edged by trees, a cornfield, county road and gravel parking lot south of Dundas, folks gathered for “Music on the Prairie.”
Waiting to buy a $5 meal deal. The meat portion of the menu varies at each concert. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
And, oh, what an event, the first in a three-part summer concert series hosted, fittingly, by Little Prairie United Methodist Church. As I took in the scene, I thought, life doesn’t get much better than this—great food, music and conversation in the outdoors on a perfect summer evening in southern Minnesota.
Volunteers grill burgers crafted from locally-raised beef. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
Waiting in line for food. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
A volunteer hands out delicious homemade cookies. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
Even waiting in line for a fresh local beef patty, a cup of specialty beans (the special ingredient being sauerkraut) and the most delicious homemade chocolate chip cookie sprinkled with sea salt didn’t phase typically-impatient me. Conversation flowed. And the down-home music of the Old Country Boys thrummed a beat across the land as they performed atop a flatbed trailer.
Dancing to the music of the Old Country Boys. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
This was an evening meant for pulling out the lawn chairs, for coming here to eat a meal served up by church members, to chat with friends old and new, and to listen to songs like “Ring of Fire,” “King of the Road,” “Sweet Caroline,” “Country Roads” and more. Music that got some in the crowd waving their arms, singing along and others on their feet dancing across the lawn.
The Rev. Penny Bonsell, accompanied by the Old Country Boys, sings to her husband, Tom. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
The Rev. Penny Bonsell and her husband, Tom Hollenhorst, dressed all in black, briefly took the stage to entertain the crowd as June Carter and Johnny Cash singing “Jackson,” the duo’s 1967 billboard country chart hit. The performance was a hit with the audience as was a song Bonsell sang for her husband in honor of their third wedding anniversary.
Cowboy hats fit the music. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
Another couple in the crowd was celebrating their 70-something anniversary (I didn’t catch the exact year). They were married at Little Prairie, a picturesque white country church located on a country crossroads corner just to the east of the concert site.
The band performs as smoke from the grill drifts and a large crowd listens. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
Both anniversaries were recognized with rounds of applause. A band member also led the crowd in welcoming a woman home from a lengthy hospital stay while he videotaped the message for Deb. Such care and compassion builds community, connects us.
Afton hangs out by coolers filled with pop and water available for purchase. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
All ages came to “Music on the Prairie”—babies in strollers, toddler Afton in her floral skirt and soft pink Princess tee celebrating her first birthday the next day, a four-year-old girl who had just finished preschool, young people, parents and grandparents. All generations.
Creating big bubbles on the spacious green space next to a cornfield. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
Daughter and dad string beads into a bracelet. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
Kids run around the grounds and play on the fenced in playground built next to a mini Little Prairie church replica facade. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
I watched as a little girl dipped an over-sized wand in a bucket, then drew bubbles across the air. I watched as a dad helped his two-year-old daughter thread beads onto a string, making a bracelet for her mom. I watched as kids climbed ladders inside the Little Prairie Playground, a mini replica of the church.
I stepped into the cornfield to take this photo of concert goers. This is a definitively rural location in the middle of farm fields. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
I listened as a train whistle blew, the train rumbling past on a track through a tree line next to the cornfield next to the lawn where we sat enjoying the music of the Old Country Boys.
Kids pull on the rope to ring the bell inside the steeple of the playground church. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
I listened to the clang of a church bell inside the playground, the hum of a generator powering the band’s amplifiers and electric guitars.
The Old Country Boys drummer. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
I hugged my friend Lee whom I haven’t seen in a while. I talked to other friends I haven’t seen in a while. And I made new friends here at Little Prairie where great food, music and conversation connected all of us on a beautiful early June evening in the countryside.
The crowd gathers and settles in for the Old Country Boys concert. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2026)
FYI: The next “Music on the Prairie” on Wednesday, July 22, features the Over and Back Band playing funky rock n roll and gypsy bluegrass. The third and final summer concert happens on Wednesday August 19, with The Rockin’ Hep Cats performing roots rock n roll. Attendees can purchase a meal beginning at 5:30 p.m. Music is from 6-8 p.m.The concert is free with donations accepted to support Little Prairie ministries.
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