Reasons for Celebrating : Fillmore: No-frills May Festival brings out thousands with its small-town fare. One local calls it a ‘rite of passion.’

George Dobbs likes to think of Fillmore’s annual May Festival and parade as a back-yard barbecue with 4,000 guests.

“It gives you that old, small-town feeling you don’t get anywhere in the world,” said Dobbs, 78, as he sat in a lawn chair Saturday with three of his friends from the El Dorado Mobile Home Estates.

“You don’t have to worry about gang fights or riots,” said Dobbs, who has lived in Fillmore for 20 years. “It’s a beautiful, warm-hearted town.”

In Fillmore, population 12,400, locals are happy to celebrate their small farm-town roots. Youngsters clambered up and down a greased pole and rode a turn-of-the-century train. A half-a-pig was the top prize in the events raffle. The slab of meat was donated by a local 4-H Club.

“It’s a spring rite of passion,” said Cecelia Corl, a member of the Fillmore Chamber of Commerce, which sponsored the event.

Although the event has kept tabs with the town’s past, it has grown far more organized than it was years ago when town residents and farmers from miles around would line up to join the parade.

“It used to be like the Doo Dah Parade (in Pasadena),” she said. “You used to just show up and stand in line. People would bring their cows and pigs.”

In honor of this year’s festival theme of “Early Transportation,” the festival organized hot-air balloon rides in the morning.

Throughout Saturday, a five-horsepower steam engine built in 1891 carried children back and forth along 150 feet of track. Today, organizers will offer bumpy stagecoach rides.

Food booths, arts and crafts, musical entertainment and other attractions are expected to lure about 30,000 people to the city for the four-day fair, more than twice the number of people who attended last year, officials said.

Residents said they cherish the fact that the parade and the fair have remained no-frills events that can showcase children’s activities and celebrate local history. One of the more popular booths held a display of yearbook photographs from Fillmore High School graduating classes of the 1970s and 1960s.

John Kozar, Class of ‘68, examined a 24-year-old snapshot taken of a smooth-cheeked 18-year-old with a crew cut who had been lampooned by a yearbook editor with a zany nickname reminiscent of the era.

“They used to call me ‘Animal Head,’ ” said Kozar, now 42 and Fillmore’s public works director. “I used to be a running back.”

Although parade-watchers were not worried about gang fights, officials from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department had taken extra precautions to prevent the eruption of gang violence.

Last year, 11 people were arrested during clashes between Fillmore and Santa Paula gang members. Concerned over a repeat of the rock-throwing, officials provided a dozen extra deputies to patrol the festival grounds and parade route, said Lt. Dick Purnell, head of the Fillmore Sheriff’s Station.

Purnell said officials also decided to close the fair at 8:30 p.m., 2 1/2 hours earlier than last year, in order to ensure that the festival remains peaceful.

“So far it’s gone perfectly,” Purnell said.

Self-described gang members who attended the festival said they weren’t looking for trouble at the festival.

“I’m going to look at the girls,” said Oscar Adame, 21, a member of The Boyz. He waved to one of his friends riding in the parade. “Hey, Tom,” he yelled as the midnight black Chevrolet slid along the parade route.

Across the street, a member of another gang, the Little Boyz, strolled out to Central Park to enjoy the parade with 50 of his friends.

“Nothing else to do but to kick back and drink,” said the 15-year-old Fillmore High sophomore who identified himself as Fugi. “This is a small town.”