Messenger Readers’ Peanut Festival Memories
By Greg Ritchie
Messenger Reporter
GRAPELAND – As another Peanut Festival begins this week, The Messenger solicited memories from our readers of their experiences at the festivals. As this is the 79th annual festival, we knew there would be plenty of good memories to share. For those who were not able to share their recollections with us, when did you first attend a Peanut Festival?
The street dance on Main Street! The best part of the week! Where businesses lined up on Main and handed out hot coco and the whole community came together!
It’s a huge school reunion and family reunion rolled into one!
My favorite memory was marching with the band at the front of the parade, turning the corner, then racing back to the band hall while taking off my band uniform just to meet up with my dad who was holding my horse, so I could ride my horse at the end of the parade. Fun times!
It was the most wonderful time of the year for me as a child to go to Grapeland for what we called the Peanut Carnival. Loved it on Main Street, winning feathered roach clips for my bothers, the horse races, getting sick on the swings. Just being footloose and fancy free
– my favorite part was riding horses in the parade with my daddy.
My dad, Hoyt Skidmore played the steel guitar in the first Peanut festival, until he was physically unable around 2012. Of course, there were many more of the musicians in the area as well, like cousin Keith Skidmore, who enjoyed entertaining our town and guests!
I attended my first peanut festival in 1999 and I was totally blown away by the parade and the floats! The floats would rival any large city parade! They were phenomenal! The Titanic! Tara from Gone With The Wind! So many!
As high school juniors, cutting a bunch of wood and staying up all night barbecuing the chickens as a class fund raiser. During senior year, we cooked hamburgers.
It was so great on Main Street. My friends and I picked up empty coke bottles, took them to Brimberries store for money to ride more rides!
It’s not the same anymore for me since most of them are gone, now. RIP to all the old timers!
New memories are set to be made this week in Grapeland. The traditional Peanut Festival Parade will be held Saturday morning at 10 a.m., with the festival in the park all day, with its music and many food and other vendors, from local delicacies to plenty of other homemade goodies filling the park.
The Peanut Queen Coronation will be held Saturday evening, beginning at 6 p.m. at Lorena Shoultz Auditorium. The two candidates for the crown are Macie Watson – Miss Grapeland Urgent Care and Isabelle Lane – Miss George Bartee Construction.
Greg Ritchie can be reached at [email protected]
