Expanded turtle race brings crowd to canal, funds for Strawberry Festival

By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 13 June 2026 at 8:06 pm

Photos by Tom Rivers: Kim Hazel, the Albion town clerk, helps to corral the turtles after the race in the Erie Canal this afternoon.

ALBION – The turtle race is one of the afternoon highlights during the second day of the Albion Strawberry Festival. There are usually 1,000 turtles in the race. This year the race was expanded with a capacity of 1,500. There ended up being 1,200 tickets sold. Each turtle represented two tickets – one in a green number and one in yellow.

Organizers also expanded the prizes from five for $1,000 total to six winners at $1,700 total.

The winners included: first place at $500 (two) – Kevin Sheehan and Mindy Recco; second place at $250 (two) – Joe Sidonio and Village of Albion (ticket bought by mayor Tim McMurray); third place at $100 (two) – Don Colquhoun and Tracey VanSkiver.

Several of winners opted to donate the prize winnings back to the festival.

The turtles get dumped from the Main Street bridge. From left include County legislator Skip Draper, and top ticket seller Jarred Saj, the Turtle, Strawberry Festival Princess Hazel Bringenberg, Queen Julia Graham, High School principal Jennifer Ashbery, Sheriff Chris Bourke, Orleans County Emergency Management director Justin Niederhofer, Albion mayor Tim McMurray, Albion Police Chief Dave Mogle and Aric Albright, Albion’s sewer plant superintendent.

Jarred Saj walks in the parade next to the Turtle mascot. Saj has been the perennial top ticket seller for the race. Thos year he set a new by selling 580 of the 1,200 tickets. He broke last year’s record of 480. Saj said he starts selling the tickets in February. They are $5 each or five for $20. The proceeds go towards helping to fund the festival.

Saj sold three of six winning tickets – Kevin Sheehan, Joe Sidonio and Don Colquhoun.

Corey Winters, director of the Orleans County Planning and Development Department, and Kim Hazel, the Albion town clerk, are in kayaks and they wait for the winning turtles.

A good-size crowd gathered along the canal to watch the action. The rubber turtles make quick work of the race due to some wind and the current in the canal.

After last year’s race lasted about a hour, this year’s was done in about 8 minutes.