by Todd Andre
Mike Isakeit wears a lot of hats.
He’s Vice President of the Deer Run Community Association (DRCA) and Co-Director of their Annual Stampede Breakfast. He’s also been a Stampede volunteer for 45 years and on the board at Friends of Fish Creek. This is all on top of a day job in corporate Calgary, while juggling a family at home, as well as the pressures of coaching your kids in minor league soccer.
His favourite hat, however, might be the one he will wear on June 22 for the annual tradition we know and love, the DRCA Stampede Breakfast.
“I love my cowboy hat, but I don’t need a fancy one,” he says. “I used to be in corporate, and every time we’re hosting in corporate, they give you a $200 hat. They sit in my house with a bag over them. Don’t want to get them dirty!”
If you’re slinging eggs and sizzling sausages at breakfast every year for more than two decades, you’re going to get your hat dirty. So, he rolls with the $29 Stetson and gets to work.
“Good for any day” Isakeit beams.
But it isn’t every day that 1,100 hungry people line up at the centre for succulent Spolumbo’s sausages and pancakes. Deer Run’s Stampede Breakfast is the biggest event of the year, and 30-year resident Isakeit has always loved how it brings the community together. Seniors’ clubs, youth groups, local businesses, and community centre collectives all work hard to keep this summer tradition a success.
“We make it a community affair,” he says. “It’s not about the sausage and pancakes, family is number one, that is what makes our breakfast so special.”
Families young and old will love the wagon rides, live music, and line dancing, as well as games for all ages, bouncy castles, and face painting.
And of course, the weather will be perfect, too – at least for a while.
“God blesses us with a breakfast in the morning and we’re done by noon,” he says. “After that it usually rains.”
There was one ill-fated year where the event plans went into the afternoon, challenging the natural order of things, only to be met with God’s wrath.
“They set up two tents inside the berms where the skating rink is,” he says. “Right [after the barbecue] at like 12:30 pm. Boom! It just poured. Everything got drenched. We lost $5,000 worth of catering. It was terrible. We never do a full day.”
And they probably never will again. Remember, breakfast starts at 9:00 am, so get your friends and family in early, get some grub, have some fun, and then get out. Even Mike, with all those hats, doesn’t have one big enough to keep dry under the inevitable prairie thunderstorm to follow.
It’s part of the tradition. See y’all there!
For more information and to volunteer, please visit deerruncalgary.com/stampede.
DRCA Vice President Mike Isakeit (left) and President Kim Semeniuk (right) mugging it up at the 2019 Stampede Breakfast.
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