The streets of Sturgis — population 197 — were alive with the rumble of motorcycles for the first time in two years this weekend as the Sturgis South Bike Rally returned to town.
The event ran from Thursday through Saturday and it offered a range of activities for all ages.
“The Town of Sturgis is so excited to have the rally back,” said Leah Brown, mayor of Sturgis. “We’ve had great support. We’ve had local support, but we’ve also had support from all across Mississippi and outside in Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida. I can’t say enough about the support that has been given to the rally this year.”
The festivities kicked off at 3 p.m. on Thursday with bikers arriving, games for kids and food vendors on site.
Friday was when the action really started to pick up, and people began making their way into town.
Friday was also the Dinner Ride, wherein 118 motorcycles formed a parade that spanned three towns before ending back in the park for a BBQ dinner.
The group made stops at Village Cycle Center in Starkville and the coliseum in Louisville. The route also took the parade through Ackerman.
There was live music every night of the event. Jodie Ross performed on Thursday, Full Circle Party Band performed following the ride on Friday and Honey Boy and Boots opened for The Jason Miller Band on Saturday, the main musical act for the rally.
The number of participants grew to the hundreds as the event rounded out on Saturday. There was the sound and bike show as well as the full slate of vendors.
There was more than just the activities to take in though.
“(I love) the people and the vendors and just seeing different bikes, what everybody’s got and what they’re doing,” said Billy Erwin of Tupelo. This was his second time attending the rally, with his first being the year before the COVID-19 pandemic.
While Erwin was relatively new to the rally, there were also veterans present.
“I think I’ve got shirts all the way back from 2008, somewhere in there, way back,” said Jerry Jackson of Gloster, Mississippi. His favorite part of the rally is also looking at all of the bikes and meeting the people who ride them.
The event also pulled people who had never been before.
One such rider was Daryl Williams of Lake, Mississippi, who loved the event as well as the community.
“I think it’s nice and it’s a nice community,” he said.
While Friday’s crowd was smaller, it was growing, and Brown was looking for a big crowd to fill the event.
“We’re having constant traffic,” she said. “It’s just been good traffic throughout the day and it’s going to get better as the weekend goes on.”
The community also got involved with the event, more specifically the elementary school.
The Pre-K through 1st grade students at West Oktibbeha Elementary School learned about transportation leading up to the event, and they constructed their own modes of transportation out of cardboard boxes. They then held a parade for parents and other students too.
“The teachers approached me about it,” said Gabrielle Mills, principal of the school. “They knew that we were doing the rally this weekend, and they asked if they could change up their units in the pacing guide and tie everything in with the rally.”
Benefits of the rally
The rally has many benefits to the town of Sturgis. Attendees often visit local businesses and that even spills over into the surrounding areas.
“The town needs the rally,” Brown said. “Sturgis lost the rally for a few years and as a result, there was not the activity that was needed. With the rally, we bring in a lot of people, not just to the rally itself, but to the surrounding areas of Oktibbeha, Winston and Choctaw, Webster, all of the counties.”
The town also receives a portion of the sales tax collected by the vendors.
“That’s huge for a town our size to have that extra revenue,” Brown said.
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