An overhead image of the crowd of vehicles at this year’s Cave City Watermelon Festival taken by Gregg and Debbie Asberry via the festival’s Facebook page
The 2019 Cave City Watermelon Festival was a definite success with huge crowds on Friday and Saturday.
“It has been a great festival,” Julie Johnson, one of the festival’s organizers, told White River Now’s Gary Bridgman. “We couldn’t have asked for better weather. We couldn’t have asked for bigger crowds. It has just been perfect. And we just thank everybody so much for coming out and supporting what we’re doing here and enjoying all the free entertainment and some of the world’s sweetest watermelons.”
Johnson said this year’s festival marked the 40th year of its existence.
“You know, you can’t have a festival without melons,” said Johnson. “Forty years ago, when they were trying to think about what type of festival (to hold), they had been having a spring festival in March, and it got snowed out. And a lady named Ola Landers was working for the Chamber of Commerce, and she said ‘Okay, we’ve got to do something different. We’ve got two things. We’ve got watermelons, and we’ve got the cave.’ A cave festival really didn’t sound that much fun, but you know when you have the world’s sweetest watermelons, that sounds like a good time because everybody has a watermelon story. Everybody remembers going to their grandmother’s or their favorite aunt’s house and having a sweet watermelon. Watermelons just have such good memories for people, so it’s just been a perfect fit.”
The festival’s entertainment included the country and western band Shenandoah on Friday and country artist Mark Chestnutt on Saturday. Both acts performed to big crowds.
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