Annual event draws record crowd, vendors
Stecoah – In spite of threatening skies, the 23rd annual Stecoah Valley Cultural Arts Center’s Fall Harvest Festival, ranked by the Southeast Tourism Society as one of the Top 20 Events of 2019, turned the 10-acre Stecoah campus into a two-day “quintessential showcase of traditional mountain life.”
Described by Romantic Asheville as “the best of Appalachian dance, music, food, and arts and crafts in a beautiful setting,” the festival began Friday evening with marshmallow-roasting and story-telling around a campfire. Micah Swimmer told Cherokee stories and played Cherokee songs as festival-goers huddled around the campfire in the autumn chill that had finally arrived in the mountains.
The festival revved up again Saturday morning, with live music, food vendors, arts and crafts, antique farming demonstrations, clogging, a country fair and a quilt exhibit.
The musical acts were moved inside the Lynn L. Shields auditorium, with shows beginning at 11 a.m. and continuing until 5 p.m. On-hand were the Stecoah JAM students, Larry & Blue, the Oktoberfest Square Dancers, the Welch Family Singers and the Jones Brothers.
Brasstown’s Pressley Girls have played the festival for several yearss. Both Corie and Katie Pressley “just love it.”
“I love the old school,” said Corie. “It’s a really sweet place to have as a venue. The audience is so into the music.”
Robbinsville native and well-known musician Julie Nelms described past performances on stage at the festival as “more of a rooted performance. It’s your own county, with an audience of people you’ve known your whole life. You can tell the audience is really paying attention.”
“You can’t help but clog when you hear that music start up,” said J.S. Childs of Thurmond, “the smallest town in West Virginia.” As he doffed his work boots in favor of his polished clogging shoes, Childs challenged his grandchildren. “I just dare you to sit still through a whole song. You can’t do it.”
Along with seven musical performances, the fest offered 10 food vendors and 45 arts and crafts booths.
“This feels like time-travel,” said Katy Dunn of Waynesville. “I didn’t even know what ‘tatting’ was until I came to this festival and I don’t think I’d ever seen a hog in real life before.”
The hog in question was part of Double 00 Farm’s menagerie, which also included goats, a cow, a pony and a horse. The 4-H Club’s poultry was also on exhibit.
“Tatting” is the nearly-lost art of hand-making lace, one of the many traditional skills on display at the Country Fair portion of the fest. Demonstrations of the labor-intensive and time-consuming tasks of butter-churning, corn-grinding and blacksmithing might have contributed to festival-goers feeling as if they had stepped back in time.
Contests for baking, canning, needle-work, produce, photography, mountain crafts and Native crafts rounded out the fair, with a scavenger hunt boasting an unusual prize: a giant pumpkin.
Eyeing up the mammoth gourd, first-grader Jayce Woods of Asheville said, “I don’t know if that’s the biggest pumpkin in the world, but I think it is and I want it.”
Estelle Browder wound up taking home the coveted pumpkin prize, while Kristen Guillory won the quilt raffle and Susan Roper’s Urban Owls quilt won the People’s Choice Award.
The Gibson Brothers concert brought the evening to a close. Called “bluegrass superstars” by The New York Times, the duo – composed of brothers Eric and Leigh – has recorded 14 albums, with their latest effort “Mockingbird” described as a mix of country, soul, and seventies rock. The band’s contemporary version of traditional mountain music was a fitting finale to a festival dedicated to traditional mountain folkways.
Stecoah Center Director Beth Fields confirmed that “the festival has gotten bigger every year since we started,” with this year’s fest hosting a record of 75 booths. Attendance did suffer a bit when the rain kicked in mid-afternoon, but at least 1,800 people still attended.
Next year’s festival is scheduled to take place on the Stecoah campus the third weekend of Oct. 2020.