Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Fun Abounds At Festival

No matter how hard a person tries, they just will not be able to take in everything at the 15th Annual Gurdon Forest Festival Saturday.

With all events downtown, the streets will be packed with visitors.

But the fun begins Friday evening at 6 with Midway Amusement Show, featuring rides from War Memorial Park. This will be held on Second Street.

At 8 p.m. a street dance will be held for those not at the Gurdon-Prescott football game at Gus Brown Field. Judy Barfield King and "Crosswind" will perform at Austin's parking lot.

The merriment continues early Saturday with the Rotary Pancake Breakfast at the Senior Adult Center at 7 a.m. Arts and Craft booths open at 8, followed by the "Swoosh Fest" at 8:30. This is a 3-on-3 basketball tourney and will be held on the AP&L parking lot.

Registration begins at 9 a.m. for the antique car show. This will be on the parking lot of First State Bank. In addition, the motorcycle show registration will be held at Front and Main at this time, while others will be lining up for the festival parade at the Gurdon High School parking lot.

The Believers will perform on the Main Street Bandstand at 9:30, while the parade gets underway at 10.

The parade will begin at the GHS lot, head down 5th Street, turn left on Main, travel to Third Street, where it will hang a right, go to Walnut, turn left on First up to Joslyn, back to third and end where it started at GHS.

Once the parade is done, the Hawkins Family will perform on the Main Street stage at 10:30 a.m.

Registration for the log loading contest begins at 11 at Front and Main.

At 11:15, Gurdon's own Heaven Bound Trio will take center stage.

The grand opening ceremonies will be held at noon, with announcements, political speeches, introduction of royalty and the GHS Marching Go-Devil Band, all at the Main Street location.

The Brown Family will sing at 12:30, while the antique cars are judged at this time.

The 3 Belle's of the 50's will perform at 1 p.m. on the Main Street stage, while the logging games and contests will be held at Main and Front streets.

The Winnie Clark Country Music Show from Gurdon will perform at 1:30, being replaced by the Terry Hughes Show at 1:50.

The Leandra Jester-Elizabeth Sheppard Show from Gurdon will hit the bandstand on Main at 2:05, followed by the Stanly Crossley "Elvis" Show at 2:30. Elvis will give way to the Reunion Singers, from Diez, Miss., at 2:50, while the Prescott Good Time Dancers perform at 3:45.

The bandstand will be cleared for the CD&E Club Auction at 4, while it will be replaced at 5 by judging of the Halloween Costume Contest by Piggly Wiggly.

Whelen Springs sends the Lemay Family to the stage at 6, while Jerry Hilton and the Ouachita Riverbottom Band take over at 6:30.

Tim Brown and the Borderline Band will perform for the Horizon Bank Street Dance at 8, which ends at 11 p.m.

A street cleaning contest will be held at 11:30, with no entry fees and free garbage bags for all participants.

The Train Man, and his mini-train, will offer rides all day along Main Street, starting at 9:30 a.m.

Additionally, there will be about 100 arts and crafts booths for people to browse through, along with numerous commercial displays.

The Forest Festival is sponsored by the Gurdon Community Development and Entertainment Club, according to festival coordinator Freddie Horne.

Gurdon's Police Department will block off two blocks of Main Street, along with two blocks of Second for the festivities.

The festival began as a centennial celebration for the City of Gurdon in 1980. The reaction, Horne said, was so favorable the community decided to make it an annual affair.

The Forest Festival has grown from a handfull of arts and crafts booths to one of the finest trade shows in south Arkansas, according to Horne.

Attendance for the festival has seen as many as 6,000 visitors.

The festival is a fund raising project for the CD&E Club, a non-profit organization. Funds raised go to support the club's scholarship fund, Boys and Girls State, the United Way, the Gurdon Close Up Program, the Senior Adult Center and other projects in Gurdon.