Cullman BIg Strawberry Fest
Strawberry celebrations - and the Strawberry Queen - are back in Cullman.
This year, the city is saluting its heritage and its strawberries with Strawberry Day Saturday at the Festhalle Market Platz and with a Founders’ Day Parade. The event also marks the beginning of the 2008 season at the Farmers Market.
Cullman County always has provided a lot of strawberries for people in Alabama and elsewhere. The Strawberry Festivals of the 1940s were grand events with a Strawberry Queen to reign over them. For this year’s Founders’ Day Parade, Joyce Leeth Petit, the Strawberry Queen of 1948, once again will be a part of the festivities. The parade will take viewers through a quick look at Cullman’s history.
It will begin with a tribute to some of the first inhabitants of Cullman County, the Echota Indians. That will be followed by descendants of the first settlers of the various communities in the county, riding in horse-drawn wagons and wearing period costumes.
Mrs. Petit and seven Strawberry Princesses of the 1940s will ride in vintage cars. Their modern counterparts - Cullman’s Junior Miss, Ms. Senior Cullman County and the county’s high school queens will ride in modern vehicles.
“When I was Strawberry Queen, the festival was quite an affair, a big thing,” Mrs. Petit recalled. “I was overwhelmed to be asked back to participate 60 years after I was queen. It has all my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren excited, too.”
Representatives of the 1962 state champion Cullman High football team will be part of the parade, along with the 2008 Cold Springs state champion girls’ basketball team. Academic champs will be recognized as well.
Children - on trikes and bikes, on foot, in wagons and in their mothers’ arms - will represent the future of the county at the end of the parade.
“This will be a wonderful way to illustrate the `Then and Now’ of our county,” said Dot Gudger, president of the Cullman County Historical Society. Lynn Edge is author of three books on travel in Alabama as well as other books. E-mail her at quicktrips@bellsouth.net
THE DETAILS
Strawberry Day begins at 7 a.m. Saturday when the Farmers Market opens at the Festhalle at the corner of First Avenue and Arnold Street NE. The parade will start at 1 p.m. at Busy Bee Cafe on First Avenue SE. It will continue to the Festhalle, then turn east on Arnold and then south on Second Avenue SE. Other events going on at the Festhalle during the day include a Classic Car Show, an Antique Tractor Show, an Arts and Crafts Fair, wagon rides and entertainment. There also will be all sorts of food made with strawberries and live entertainment throughout the day. There is no admission charge.
MORE TO SEE AND DO
Ms. Senior Cullman County Fashion Show. Former participants in the pageant will model today’s fashions against a backdrop of vintage clothing. The event, which also will be Saturday, will be from 10 a.m. to noon at Northbrook Baptist Church. To get there from the Festhalle, go north on U.S. 31 and turn right onto Alabama 157. The church will be on the right. Tickets are $12.
HOW TO GET THERE
To get to Cullman, take I-65 North to U.S. 278 (Exit 308). Take U.S. 278 East into Cullman. It is about 50 miles from Birmingham.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
About Cullman, call 256-734-0454 or go to www.cullmanalabama.com.
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