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Sylva to celebrate spring with Saturday’s festival
By Lynn Hotaling
Part hoedown, part crafts fair, part games and contests, Sylva’s annual spring celebration is a day of fun waiting to be enjoyed by residents and visitors alike.
The festival, in its eighth year, is dubbed Greening Up the Mountains for the way spring arrives in the Western North Carolina hills, with the new season’s green starting in the valleys and slowly creeping up the mountainsides.
The all-day event is Sylva Partners in Renewal’s invitation to the community to come downtown and celebrate spring with their neighbors, said festival coordinator Tony Camblor, and is special because of the range of activities it offers.
The Cullowhee Valley Cloggers will be among the entertainers at this Saturday’s day-long Greening Up the Mountains festival in downtown Sylva. The young dancers, who warmed up this past Thursday during Catch the Spirit of Appalachia Day at Jackson County’s School of Alternatives, will energize Main Street’s Founders’ Stage at 2:15 p.m. Other performers will include the Queen Family, the Fiddling Dills Sisters and the Smoky Mountain High School Concert Band. Headlining the WestCare Main Stage near the Courthouse will be David Childers and the Modern Don Juans at 3:30 p.m. Other acts there will include Sylva’s own Matt Stillwell and Ashley Chambliss. – Herald photo by Nick Breedlove
“It brings people together,” he said, adding that Greening Up includes more things for kids to do than most such events.
Children who are downtown on Saturday can enjoy pony rides, climb the wall sponsored by Blackrock Outdoor Co., join in games and activities provided by New Century Scholars and Ducks on the Tuck and stop by First Baptist Church for the bouncy castle, face-painting and crafts.
Music will fill Sylva all day, as a steady procession of performers display their talents from two Main Street stages as well as from a smaller venue in the courtyard of Karen’s Restaurant. There will also be two special performances at the SPIR gazebo in the CCB parking lot.
For a complete listing of festival music and performers, see the Greening Up special section inside this issue.
Saturday’s first event will be the Greening Up 5K run, which begins at Mark Watson Park at 8 a.m. Race-day registration starts at 7 a.m. at the park.
While this year’s route has been altered slightly, it still includes the race’s signature feature – a challenging climb up Savannah Drive.
Up next in Saturday’s lineup will be the 10 a.m. Parade of Many Colors, featuring lots of local children and the festival king and queen. Sponsored by Catch the Spirit of Appalachia, this year’s theme will be “The Dance of Spring,” and participants will gather at the town of Sylva’s Railroad Avenue parking lot and follow last year’s route: east on Mill Street, around the former Meatballs’ and west down Main Street toward the Courthouse.
This year’s grand marshals will be Western Carolina University’s Lady Catamount basketball team, the Southern Conference champions.
Mid-morning (10 a.m.) will also see the opening of the Main Street midway – packed with more booths and vendors this year than ever before – and the beginning of musical performances from both festival stages.
When noon rolls around, Congressman Charles Taylor and Sylva elected officials will participate in a brief ceremony marking Sylva’s new status as a Tree City USA. Local N.C. Forest Service rangers will award the certificate marking the town’s achievement.
Catch the Spirit organizers will continue past events’ commitment to honor local mountain heritage through demonstrations and presentations that link the area’s past with its present with a Heritage Walk. Visitors will want to make a point to stop by Karen’s Restaurant courtyard for demonstrations of traditional mountain skills and crafts and displays of winning entries in the baked and preserved foods competitions.
One of the day’s last events will be Ducks on the Tuck, a major fund-raiser for New Century Scholars that is held each year in conjunction with Greening Up the Mountains. “Adopted” ducks will race (float) down the Tuckaseigee from Dillsboro to Western Builders. Ducks are still available at all Jackson County public schools, including Summit Charter in Cashiers.
More information on the festival and its component events is available in The Sylva Herald’s special section inside this issue or from SPIR at 586-1577 or Catch the Spirit at 631-4587.
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