Rick Marucci and children Noah, 9, and Jamie, 13, plant marigolds Saturday on North Main Street in Winterville. Volunteers helped plant 4,000 marigolds all over Winterville in preparation for the festival May 15. This is the second year of the festival following a seven-year hiatus. The marigolds were grown from seed by Thyme After Thyme of Winterville.
Photograph by Melissa Williamson.
Published Sunday, April 11, 2010
By Jennifer L. Johnson
WINTERVILLE - Last year, a group of citizens longing for the small town's signature event revived the Winterville Marigold Festival, and now they want to leave no doubt that the town really is the City of Marigolds.
Volunteers gathered Saturday to plant 4,000 of the small flowers - some blooming, others not yet showing their color - along Main Street, near the historic train depot, country doctor's museum and in Pittard Park in preparation for this year's festival May 15.
In 2003, a group of long-time volunteers closed the festival after repeatedly asking for new residents to step forward to organize and run the event.
After a seven-year hiatus, some of those new residents joined with longtime locals to stage a comeback festival last year, drawing 4,000 people, a little more than half the number the festival drew in its peak years.
"When we quit doing it, everyone got on the bandwagon to do it again," said Brenda Mercer, who is on the board of the group planning the festival. "We knew they loved the festival, but we needed the volunteers to really do it."
While Marigold Festival organizers lamented a few years ago that they couldn't get new volunteers, a strong sense of community swelled in the festival's absence, making people long for the old days. After last year's successful festival, more volunteers are working to make the event possible this year.
"A lot of my volunteers' parents were volunteers a few years ago," said festival organizer Emily Eisenman. "We've got the second generation - maybe even the third generation - helping out this year."
Nine-year-old Elizabeth Dutch is a third-generation volunteer. She came out to help plant flowers and talk about the coming festival.
"I want to go to the festival this year," Elizabeth said. "I went last year and liked the parade the best."
In its heyday, the marigold tradition was as much about preparing for the festival as staging the one-day event. Residents planted batches of marigolds on city property and in their own yards to make sure the yellow and orange blooms were everywhere on festival day. Dorothy Heintz, Elizabeth's grandmother, moved to the area in 1982 and liked that aspect of the tradition.
"This is my favorite job," Heintz said. "Gardening is what I do best."
With the rebirth of the festival last year, volunteers had to plant the flowers twice - once in spring and again after a hard freeze killed the first batch, according to 68-year-old volunteer Randall Covington.
Heintz saw a sign on the Winterville Depot marquee about this year's planting and got details from her neighbor Jack Eisenman, the chairman of the landscape committee for the festival.
Ashley Conner, 23, learned about the planting from a friend at church, and came out to help plant, even though she's never been to the Marigold Festival before.
"It's one of those things where I always wanted to go, but never did make it," Conner said. "Planting the flowers today will keep the festival in my mind."
Conner has lived in the city for 14 years, but you don't have to be from Winterville to love the official symbol.
Athens resident and Master Gardener Jean Colquett has been to several Marigold Festivals in the past, but she's never lent her love of gardening to getting ready for it.
"Marigolds are wonderful flowers because they have very few pests that bother them," Colquett said. "The marigolds we're planting have buds now. They should be beautiful in five weeks, just in time for the festival."
While the Marigold Festival brings the small town together, organizers hope to draw people from outside the community, too.
To help make it easy for outsiders to get there, the city has arranged a free shuttle service through Athens Transit that will take people from Walmart on Lexington Road to the festival and back. Buses will run all day so people don't need to worry about driving to the city, finding a parking spot down the street from the square and walking back.
Although organizers hope for good weather, Eisenman hasn't found that a few dark clouds deter most people on event day.
"The interesting thing is that, even though we threatened rain and we had one shower during the festival last year, it didn't seem to dampen the enthusiasm at all," she said. "The city really loves this festival."
Volunteers interested in helping Winterville prepare for the festival can sign up at www.cityofwinterville.com/ marigold.
Originally published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Sunday, April 11, 2010
