‘Chicken Dance,’ bratwurst and accordians spark fun at Hof GermanFest
Musicians perform during Hof GermanFest in 2015. The festival celebrates its 30th anniversary Jan. 22-23, 2016, at the Golden Spike Event Center in Ogden.
Salzburger Echo played alphorns during Sneddon Hof GermanFest in 2015. The group returns for the festival's 30th anniversary Jan. 22-23, 2016, at the Golden Spike Event Center in Ogden.
Scott Sneddon, founder of the 30-year-old Hof GermanFest, makes a run down a ski hill in downtown Ogden during the festival's early years. Sneddon passed away in 2005.
Katherine Sneddon Heninger, second from left, poses with children Brian Sneddon, Lisa Trujillo and John Sneddon at the Hof Winterfest Cottage, a house for Ogden's Christmas Village created in memory of the late Scott Sneddon, founder of Sneddon Hof GermanFest and Katherine's former husband. The cottage will be displayed during the Hof festival on Jan. 22-23, 2016, in Ogden.
Salzburger Echo, a Utah-based band, will play its last Hof GermanFest on Jan. 22-23, 2016, at the Golden Spike Event Center in Ogden. Band members, who played at the first Hof carnival 30 years ago, are retiring.
German clothing was on display at the 2015 Sneddon Hof GermanFest. This year's event is Jan. 22-23, 2016, at the Golden Spike Event Center in Ogden.
Scott and Katherine Sneddon, far right, pose with dignitaries from Germany and elsewhere during the 2004 Hof GermanFest in Ogden. The festival celebrating the sister-city relationship between Ogden and Hof, Germany, marks its 30th anniversary Jan. 22-23, 2016.
OGDEN — If it’s winter in Ogden, some serious oom-pah-pahing is bound to reach your ears.
That is, of course, unless your hearing is inundated instead by that perky melody known as “The Chicken Dance.”
Such are the musical hallmarks of Sneddon Hof GermanFest, the annual celebration of German music, dancing, food and culture that explodes every January in the Golden Spike Event Center.
This year brings an extra reason to party as the Ogden festival marks its 30th anniversary on Friday and Saturday, Jan. 22 and 23, at the Weber County Fairgrounds.
First known as the Hof Winter Carnival, the event debuted three decades ago with skiing on a man-made hill on a downtown Ogden street.
“Over the years, it’s just gotten bigger and better,” said Katherine Sneddon Heninger, whose late husband Scott Sneddon started the festival in 1986.
The winter event celebrates the sister-city relationship between Ogden and Hof, a town in the German state of Bavaria.
PREVIEW
• WHAT: Hof GermanFest
• WHEN: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Jan. 22-23
• WHERE: Exhibit Hall at Golden Spike Event Center, 1000 N. 1200 West, Ogden
• ADMISSION: $8/adults, $6/seniors and ages 13-17 with student ID, $5/ages 3-12, free/2-under, $25/family pass (2 adults and up to 4 children or students). 801-399-8798, www.hofgermanfest.com.
Over the years, many adults and young people of both cities have traveled back and forth to learn more about life in another country, beyond the ordinary tourist sites.
“We would be in their homes and learn about them and what they did in their everyday life,” Heninger, a Pleasant View resident, recalled.
“For young people especially,” she added, “to become acquainted with other cultures at an early age, it broadens their perspective on life. … It makes the world not such a faraway place.”
This year’s Hof GermanFest runs from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. both days with a full lineup of musicians including the Alpiners USA, a German folk band from northern California that is new to the event. Also performing will be Art Borgli, a Swiss yodeler, and the Gruber Family Band, both of California.
Utah-based Salzburger Echo is making its final appearance at Hof GermanFest, said Jim Harvey, general manager of the Golden Spike Event Center, because the band members are retiring. The alphorn musicians have been a long-time favorite of audiences and Harvey said they played at the first Hof carnival 30 years ago.
Former members of the Weber State University LDS Institute Folk Dancers will also perform.
A variety of authentic German foods, such as bratwurst, schnitzel and potato salad, will be served, made by Siegfried’s Delicatessen and Vosen’s Bread Paradise in Salt Lake City.
Harvey said the Ogden festival is as authentic as any German festival in the country in terms of entertainment, food and activities. He visited an Oktoberfest last fall in Southern California and said he felt Hof offered a better experience.
“I was really happy with our big event in a small town,” he said.
The festival features a variety of craft vendors as well as the display of an Ogden Christmas Village cottage made in Scott Sneddon’s memory.
As Hof 2016 approaches, Heninger is putting the finishing touches on chicken hats that volunteers will sell to raise funds for Weber State University scholarships awarded annually in Scott Sneddon’s name.
The hats — for “Chicken Dance” participants or spectators — feature the silhouette of a chicken, complete with feathers on the tail and wings.
Since her husband passed away in 2005, about 15 to 20 partial scholarships have been given to students in respiratory therapy, Heninger said. The couple’s daughter is a respiratory therapy professor at Weber State; Scott Sneddon was a WSU graduate and Heninger worked at the university for 20 years.
“We’re rather connected,” Heninger said.
Hof GermanFest has continued because it’s a great family event that offers something for all ages, the Pleasant View resident said.
“It’s really a festive thing,” she said of the winter carnival.
During its history, the Hof event has been staged by Ogden City, then by private volunteers, and, finally, after Sneddon’s death in 2005, by Weber County.
Heninger said her family is pleased the county has continued the tradition and she knows her husband would be happy to see the festival mark its 30th year.
“I’m sure he’d be smiling. … I think he’d be very pleased that someone continued something that was very passionate for him,” she said.
Contact reporter Becky Cairns at 801-625-4276 or bcairns@standard.net. Follow her on Twitter at @bccairns or like her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SEbeckycairns.