Steffen Silvis - MNJ Contributor
One of the victims of 2024’s storm was Bakersville’s renowned North Carolina Rhododendron Festival, which lost its centrality downtown, due to the damage to the Cane Creek park and the businesses along N.C. Highway 226. Since then, the festival has scheduled its events scattered at different locations around town.
At the festival this past weekend, a 15-minute walk separated the Classic Car Show, held around Bakersville’s Fire Department, and the annual Craft Fair, which was squeezed into the football field at Bowman Middle School. There were shuttle buses to move attendees from one event to another.
Despite the logistical problems faced by the town and organizers, the festival attracted crowds over last Friday and Saturday.
While the Craft Fair was in operation throughout Friday, and the first round of the Scholarship Pageant and the inaugural street dance occurred that evening, Saturday was the launch of the festival’s full roster of activities.
As a warm-up to the festival’s 47th annual 10k run at 8:30 a.m., a one-mile walk started from Gouge Primary School a half-hour before. The 10k run attracted 73 athletes, all but one finishing the course. The Car Show opened to auto-enthusiasts at 9 a.m., while the Craft Fair reopened for business an hour later.
One of the Craft Fair attractions was the entertainment provided by several visiting festival queens from other pageants around North Carolina. Riley Grise, the queen of the Strawberry Festival held in Wallace, North Carolina, finished a song on the fair’s stage and then joined several other young women wearing crowns nearby.
“This is one of the highlights of representing one of the state festivals,” Grise said. “We get to travel to other events as ambassadors.”
These young ambassadors not only entertained at the Craft Fair, but also during the two-day pageant at Bowman’s auditorium to choose the next Rhododendron court, consisting of a junior and senior queen.
The final competition for naming the festival’s queens was a three-hour affair that could have been tightly directed into two. Emcee Bob Hensley reigned over a non-stop talent show that featured clogging, movement displays with lip-syncing, and singing.
Other than choosing its new court, the pageant paid praise to the two outgoing queens: senior Kaylyn Fairchild and junior Kimber Ostrander. After the talent and evening gown competitions, the new court of senior Brenna McPherson and junior Madison Hunter were crowned.
Following each of the pageant evenings, the crowds would make the 10-minute walk to the town center for what is hailed as North Carolina’s largest street square dance. Friday evening brought approximately 270 dancers to Bakersville’s center.
Kelli Bean, a festival volunteer in charge of the street dance’s tickets, was happy with Saturday night’s attendance.
“We’ve already sold more tickets than last night,” Bean reported.
Bean was already excited by the festival’s 80th anniversary in 2027.
“We’ll have the park back next year, and the festival will be like it was,” she said.