Bradley County tomato fest to place Warren in the pink

It's that time of year when the streets of Warren run pink -- with tomato juice. As even former President Bill Clinton has discovered, that juice can be tasty, but also hazardous to one's clothing.

This year's celebration will be even bigger as the Bradley County Pink Tomato Festival turns 60 years old.

"Do you realize that the Pink Tomato Festival is older than the Super Bowl?" asks Joel Tolefree with the Bradley County Chamber of Commerce.

As Tolefree explains, the festival is "akin to an old-time homecoming. People have been coming here over decades. People have come, brought their children. Now their grandkids are coming."

They come for the arts and crafts market, the carnival rides and the fireworks display that closes the festival. There will also be a mobile aquarium, turtle races, a bacon-eating contest, a 5K race, classic car show and a festival parade.

Friday night's activities will include a big street dance, and Saturday's schedule has a "soon to be world famous" steak cook-off.

The music lineup includes Craig Wayne Boyd, John Anderson, Ward Davis and Stone Aces.

But mostly, people come for the tomatoes. The point of the festival has always been to draw attention to agriculture and to the tomato, the state's official fruit and vegetable. The famed, lycopene-rich fruits take center stage.

There are tomatoes for buying, admiring, eating and packing.

The "Great Bowls of Fire" Salsa Contest is set for 6 p.m. Friday and other tomato-related activities include the Heirloom Tomato Taste Test, the Tomato Packing Contest and the All Tomato Luncheon. The luncheon will be held in memory of its founder, Jean C. Frisby, who died in December.

Then, of course, there's the novelty of seeing people stuff themselves full of as many tomatoes as possible. The tomato-eating contest always draws a big crowd. And for added novelty, there's a celebrity version.

"Bill Clinton came one time [in 1978], trying to win," Tolefree says. "He even messed up his white shirt. So we had to open up one of our little clothiers so he could get another shirt!"

Clinton referenced the contest in his autobiography, My Life: The Early Years, saying he "felt pretty sick for a couple of days."

It's a huge undertaking, especially for a town of fewer than 6,000 people, but an army of volunteers pulls together to create old-fashioned entertainment for everyone, Tolefree says: "That's the kind of thing we want to go back to, the old golden days and to have a family event."

Weekend on 06/09/2016