Pucker up for Picklefest next weekend

ATKINS — Picklefest is a big dill in Atkins.

The 26th annual festival is scheduled for Friday and Saturday downtown. People can relish many activities, including a rodeo, a talent show, vendor booths, pickle-eating and pickle-juice-drinking contests, a parade and more.

The event, which is sponsored by the nonprofit organization People for a Better Atkins, started in 1992 as a tribute to the Atkins Pickle Co., which closed in 2002.

Picklefest will open at noon Friday, which is when vendor booths open, and there will be live entertainment during the day.

Activities will take place all day on Saturday, beginning about 9 a.m., said Charles May, who is in charge of the vendor booths.

“We have about 70 booths, thus far, food and crafts,” he said.

He said activities will go until at least 7 p.m. Friday.

On Saturday, the annual horseshoe tournament is scheduled for 10 a.m. at the north end of the cotton yard. The cost to enter is $5 per person. Also at 10 a.m., a talent show is scheduled on the main stage for students in kindergarten through the 12th grade. First-, second- and third-place prizes will be awarded. There is no cost to enter, and forms are available on the website peopleforabetteratkins.org. The deadline is Wednesday to return them.

Tusk, the Razorback mascot, is scheduled to make an appearance at 10 a.m. Saturday, May said.

Also, Church of the Assumption, 118 Ave. 3 NE, will hold an all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast from 6-11 a.m. Saturday. The cost is $6 per person for pancakes and sausage, coffee, juice and milk. Children 6 and younger may eat for free.

A parade down Main Street is scheduled for 1 p.m., and Tusk will participate, May said. The parade will be followed by the pickle-eating and pickle-juice-drinking contests at 1:30 p.m.

“We should have some kids games as well,” said Charlia Pack, president of People for a Better Atkins.

May said activities for children include face-painting, a petting zoo, carnival rides and pony rides.

May said the festival will end about 6 p.m. Saturday.

However, a rodeo in conjunction with Picklefest is scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the rodeo arena.

Pack said the festival, held the third weekend in May every year, always draws a crowd. She said she has been to the festival since it began in 1992, when she was a junior in high school.

“It’s always been a big staple in the community,” she said.

Food will be plentiful at the festival, including fried dill pickles using an original, secret family recipe that was developed in the 1960s by Bernell “Fatman” Austin, who owned a drive-in restaurant in Atkins.

Although Austin died in 1999, his son, David, has the recipe, and he and the Masonic Lodge sell the pickles during the festival.

“The fried dill pickles are always a huge draw,” Pack said, and a woman has a lemonade stand every year that is a must, Pack said. “One of the churches always does homemade bake goods.”

A history of Picklefest on the People for a Better Atkins website states that the community’s connection to pickles started in 1945, when the Goldsmith Pickle Co. invested $75,000 to build a pickle plant in town, and residents raised an additional $15,000 to build and equip the plant. The plant became the Atkins Pickle Co., and it was a staple of the town’s economy for 50 years.

After the plant closed, the name of the festival changed for one year to the Atkins Spring Jubilee, but residents soured on the name, and Picklefest was revived.

Because pickles aren’t produced in Atkins anymore, organizers buy them from a local store to have during the festival.

Proceeds from the event go toward projects sponsored by People for a Better Atkins, Pack said.

“We always do the Christmas baskets every year that we give out to people in the community who need them,” Pack said. “We’ve also been working on a blessing box to put up. They’re called different things, but people put nonperishable food in [a box] for anyone who needs it. You put something in, take something out.”

Pack said the organization also sponsors a college scholarship every year for an Atkins High School graduate and a Citizen of the Year award.

T-shirts, designed by resident Deanna Johnson, are on sale at Atkins Family Pharmacy and will be available at the festival as well.

“We’ve got our fingers crossed for some nice weather,” May said.

Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.

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