CABOT — In Cabot, residents and visitors know the change from summer to fall brings an annual celebration of the town’s resilience and spirit of community. CabotFest will celebrate its 41st year Oct. 10-12.
“It’s a tradition,” said Amy Williams, president and CEO of the Cabot Chamber of Commerce. “It’s a festival to celebrate coming together after a tornado hit the city.”
The tornado hit Cabot in 1976, destroying the downtown area and killing five people. Two years later, the town held a festival called “Cabot … We’re Back!” The event became an annual tradition on the second Saturday of every October and was rebranded CabotFest.
Members of the Cabot Chamber of Commerce, which organizes the event, look for ways to get the community involved in CabotFest beyond just attending the festival. For instance, the chamber’s official CabotFest T-shirt was chosen from submitted designs.
This year’s CabotFest T-shirt was designed by Kelly Tamburo, a newcomer to Cabot who said she is excited for her husband, Chas, and her to see what their life in Cabot will bring.
The Tamburos moved to Cabot from Russellville in April. Kelly said her husband’s job gave him the opportunity to relocate, and they loved the idea of raising a family in Cabot.
“We’re both from small towns and moved to Russellville for college. We met in college and got married and ended up living there for longer than we thought we would. We like that even though Cabot is about the same size as Russellville, it feels more like a small town,” she said. “We’re here for life, now.”
The Tamburos have dived right into life in Cabot, Kelly said. She and her husband frequent the Food Truck Frenzies — a monthly food truck gathering that Cabot City Beautiful started in June this year — and are meeting people and making friends in their new city.
“Everyone’s so friendly and nice,” she said of Cabot. “We love it here.”
Tamburo has never been to CabotFest, but as a graphic designer, she jumped at the opportunity to research and find out more about the festival before designing a shirt she hoped would represent the event.
“I did a lot of internet research on CabotFest,” she said. “It’s the 41st year, so I went with a retro design. At first, I did red and black for Cabot, but I decided to go with a bright blue on a darker shirt for something different.”
Tamburo studied graphic design at Arkansas Tech and now has a small business.
“I’ve always loved being creative. I did my first craft show at 9,” she said. “Originally, I thought I wanted to be an art teacher. … I love being able to sit there and design something, then see people’s reactions.”
The winning design for the T-shirt competition was chosen through a combination of social-media votes and CabotFest Committee votes. Shirts are on sale for $15 through the chamber.
Tamburo said this was her first competition of this kind, and she’s excited to be involved in CabotFest as a vendor.
Vendors are just part of the fun at CabotFest. Williams said the chamber has been working on CabotFest since April and tries to expand and find new things every year.
“It’s a growing festival,” she said. “The prep work is hard. The day of it is easy.”
The Arkansas Art Center’s Mobile Art Museum will be at CabotFest this year, Williams said. This new addition to the festival will allow festivalgoers to view art pieces at the event.
The chamber has also added five or six new food trucks and will host the Battle of the Bands again at CabotFest.
The headliner for the evening of Oct. 12 is Unspoken, an American Christian band that has had several top singles.
CabotFest will still have the vendors, carnival, cricket-spitting contest (participants spit dead crickets for the longest distance), kids area, car show and stage acts the community has seen in the past.
“We just want to make everybody happy,” Williams said.
Admission to CabotFest is free, and activities will be in downtown Cabot. For more information on CabotFest, visit the Cabot Chamber of Commerce Facebook page or the CabotFest 2019 Facebook page.