It’s time again for the annual Adairville Strawberry Festival - and this year, the event organizers are promising much better rides for the children.
The amusement rides have been provided for years by Casey Rides, but last year didn’t live up to previous expectations, which has led the festival to look elsewhere for its primary entertainment for children.
“Caseys had normally been providing the rides for about 30 years,” said Adairville/South Logan Chamber of Commerce president Nannette Starks King. “Last year they took their rides to Portland, Tenn., for their Strawberry Festival and then also sent some to White House and they ended up sending us what they called their ‘third tier.’ It was horrible. The kids that came downtown didn’t want to stay.”
So this year, in order to make the Strawberry Festival even better than in past years, the chamber of commerce will be bringing in Great American Shows, a company from Madisonville, to provide children’s rides.
King said Wayne Stratton, one of the chamber members, has been to festivals where Great American provided rides and spoke very highly of them.
The rides will open Thursday at 3 p.m. Arm bands for unlimited rides are on sale now at Adairville city hall, the hardware store, the Hideaway, Barnes Insurance, the Country Angel and other locations.
“You can get them at pretty much all of the downtown merchants,” King said. “The arm bands cost $30 and are good for unlimited rides all three days the festival is open.”
Arm bands must be purchased before 3 p.m. Thursday. Once they are purchased, the buyer will be given a wooden token that can be redeemed once the rides are up and going.
Also on Thursday night, the Link Family will be performing gospel music on the square from 4-6 p.m. Clay Bilyeau will perform from 6-7 p.m. and the Adairville Idol talent show will begin at 7 p.m.
“You can get an entry form at city hall or just show up that night before 7 p.m.,” King said. “You have to bring your own CD and a backup song if you win and want to do an encore at the end.”
The rides open at 1 p.m. on Friday afternoon and the kiddie parade will be at 4 p.m. The kids and adults pet show will take place after the kiddie parade and the Silvertones gospel group will perform at approximately 5 p.m.
At 8 p.m., the band “Chapter 11” will begin performing as part of the “Dancing on the Square” event.
“We are bringing them back from last year,” King said. “Everyone seemed really pleased with them last year.”
As always, the big day will be Saturday, May 19.
The annual pancake breakfast will be from 6-9 a.m. at the Red River Fish and game Club.
The crafts will be up and going around 9 a.m. and the baby show will be at the Adairville School at 10 a.m.
Rides will also open at 10 a.m. and the Jackson-Dickinson dual reenactment will be at 1:30 p.m., followed by the parade.
A bluegrass band, Grass Pack, will perform on the square from 4-7 p.m. and the festival will wrap up with its headline band beginning at 8 p.m. This year’s headliner will be the very popular Bowling Green cover band, Skip Bond and the Fugitives.
In addition to all the entertainment, there will also be plenty of vendors on hand selling food and other items.
“We’ll have a lot of good vendors,” King said. “Some are returning and others will be new and have lots of interesting stuff we’ve never had before.”
The first events of the Strawberry Festival started this past weekend with the annual car show and 5K run.
“The weather didn’t look like it would be very good, but we went ahead and had the car show,” King said. “It turned out great, we had 49 paid entries and several others that just showed up to show off their cars. It was a real good crowd.”
This year’s car show was conducted in the memory of Doug Orndorff, who recently passed away.
“Doug was so involved in this car show every year,” King said. “He really was an asset to it.”
King said that all the proceeds will be given to Orndorff’s family to help with his medical bills.
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