Staff Writer
FORT FAIRFIELD — The annual Maine Potato Blossom Festival is on its 62nd year of celebrating agricultural heritage. “It’s the oldest festival in the state,” said Janet Kelle, Fort Fairfield Chamber of Commerce executive director. “Our theme this year is ‘Home Town Pride’, and we’re really celebrating being from Aroostook County, living in America, veterans, and everything that we’re all proud of.”
The overall theme of the festival — July 11-19 — is to celebrate the agricultural heritage of The County, and the chamber of commerce tries to build on that each year, Kelle added.
While there are new events to the festival this year, including large scale inflatables, magician and child entertainer Randy Judkins, the town-wide yard sale, and comedian and Maine native Juston McKinney who recently signed on with the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, the festival continues to host potato and agricultural heritage-based events.
Last year was the first year of the Farmer Olympics, hosted by the Northern Maine Antique Tractor Club.
“They do various agricultural-based activities, like barrel rolling and potato picking, and we have a few different potato picking contests at different days during the week,” said Kelle. “We also have the antique tractor pulls and equipment displays, and the Maine Potato Board holds their Industry Dinner during the festival.”
For those who wish to literally immerse themselves in agricultural heritage, head on down to the mashed potato wrestling at 6 p.m. on Friday, July 17 for some good natured rough housing in a vat of mashed potatoes.
A staple of the festival, the parade and the street dance take place on Saturday, July 18.
“We’re starting the street dance at 5 p.m. on Saturday and we’re going to have two bands this year for the street dance, Turning Point and Motor Booty Affair, who was our street dance band last year and they drew quite a crowd,” Kelle said. “We’re anticipating an even bigger crowd this year.”
Festival events have a tendency to draw quite a crowd. “Last year we had Family Movie Night, which we’re going to have again this year, and that drew about 1,000 people,” Kelle said. “What we try to do is have events the entire nine days of the festival and we get the different clubs and organizations to host different events, for example the Gospel Festival is held the beginning week of July 11, the first Sunday, July 12, we’re having Randy Judkins, who is a magician and child’s entertainer. Wintergreen Arts has agreed to do some crafts for the kids and we’re going to have a DJ there playing music, and we have a company coming up with large scale inflatable that adults can also participate with, so it should be fun for all ages,” she added.
“There are so many events going on throughout the week.” Kelle said, “it’s kind of hard to pinpoint one or two.”
“If you haven’t been to the festival in a while, I encourage you to come back and to enjoy it,” she added. “We have a lot of neat things going on.”
For more information regarding the Maine Potato Blossom Festival, contact Kelle at 472-3802 or visit www.potatoblossom.org .
