Editorial - September 2002

Celebrate the 31st Lincoln Apple Festival

September 20, 2002 - Join the crowds this weekend for Lincoln County’s premier celebration — the Apple Festival. It’s a wonderful excuse to get outside with your family and enjoy the beginning of autumn after a torturously hot and dry summer.

Lincoln marks the 31st year of this popular event, expected to draw some 50,000 to downtown Lincolnton for crafts, food, entertainment, contests, exhibitions and children’s activities. You’re sure to run into friends and neighbors, many working booths and tables inside and outside the courtsquare. Almost 50 percent of the booth venders will be Lincoln County non-profit organizations.

The common theme, of course, is a celebration of the apple, once the product of a thriving agricultural industry in the region. Apples are still the leading fruit crop in North Carolina and the state ranks seventh nationally in apple production. Locally, a number of area growers have retired and there has been more emphasis on direct sales. International competition has greatly reduced the opportunities for growers to sell processing apples they have produced. But for many who attend the Apple Festival buying apples from local growers is an important part of the event. You will see a lot of people carrying apples around.

This festival is so successful each year that we have urged festival organizers to extend it to a week-long event, simply by spreading out the various events and activities. The Apple Queen pageant, for example could be held during the week. Band concerts, street dances and other events could be added so that the popularity of a one-day celebration is extended many times over. Many cities go weekend-to-weekend with their festivals.

The festival, under the guidance of the Agricultural Extension service and local apple growers, started in September of 1972 at the Boger City United Methodist Church. It later moved to the National Guard Armory and to West Lincoln High School before moving downtown in 1978 to accommodate increasing attendance.

We congratulate the Apple Festival Board for putting on this year’s festival, because we know it will be a success. The 2002 officers are President Janice DeGregory, Vice President David Self; Secretary Dot Johnson and Treasurer Patty Blackwell. Board members include Carol “Bud” Beam, Lynn Brown, Ann Caldwell, Gary David, Pete DeGregory, Libby Eurey, Robby Eurey, Brad Guth, Janie Hastings, Jill Howard, Bobby Jenks, Earline Johnson, Glenda Noles, Pam Null, Barbara Saunders, Stephen Starnes and Becky Williams.

© 2001 Lincoln Times-News  

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