PORT ANGELES — The 33rd annual Great Olympic Peninsula Duck Derby is Sunday and this year it is in person.
For the past two years, the Duck Derby had been presented virtually because of COVID-19 health measures. This year, the big changes are that it will be in person and be at a new venue.
As always, watching the race is free.
People will gather at the Pebble Beach Park at Front and Railroad streets in Port Angeles beginning at 11:30 a.m., when the Kids Pavilion and VID party will begin. The Very Important Duck (VID) derby will be at 1 p.m. and at 1:30 p.m. will be the main event, which as of Thursday had 23,000 entries.
“We’re expecting another 4,000 or 5,000 by derby day,” said Bruce Skinner, executive director of Olympic Medical Center Foundation.
Proceeds of the annual fundraiser, which is presented by the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, go to the foundation to support medical education and treatment in Clallam County through Olympic Medical Center.
Rubber ducks are on sale now. Each duck ticket costs $6. For $30, adopters receive an extra duck (six chances to win) in the race.
The derby, once a “race” with ducks poured into a pond and floating along to cross a finish line, has evolved into what Skinner calls a “duck pluck.”
For the main derby, six pickups are filled with rubber ducks. Cards are drawn to determine which will contain the order of the “finish line,” and a duck is plucked from each one.
In the VID derby, ducks are in one pickup truck.
For each duck that’s adopted, the purchaser receives a ticket with a printed number, which corresponds to a number on the duck.
Owners of the 34 plucked ducks win prizes, with the top prize being a 2022 Toyota Corolla donated by Wilder Toyota.
Duck tickets can be purchased from the Sequim High School leadership class, Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce, students from Peninsula College — who are raising money to support medical education and treatment in Clallam County — Olympic Medical Center employees, Port Angeles High football and basketball teams and senior class parents, the Parent-Teacher Organization at Franklin Elementary, the Olympic Peninsula Rowing Association or from the OMC Foundation.
Ducks also are on sale daily at all Safeway stores in Sequim and Port Angeles, Wilder Toyota, Lovell’s Roadrunner Shell convenience store, Swain’s General Store, Sound Community Bank, First Federal and several other locations.
The Bub and Alice Olsen Very Important Duck Race is an opportunity for businesses and individuals, including those from outside the Olympic Peninsula who do business with local companies, to purchase special VID ducks emblazoned with their logo, for $300 each.
The event is operated under the rules of the Washington State Gambling Commission.
The foundation has given nearly $7 million to, or on behalf of OMC, during the past decade, said Bruce Skinner, director of the foundation.
For more information, call the Olympic Medical Center Foundation at 360-417-7144 or see www.omhf.org.
