Workers prepare for start of Peanut Festival

While thousands of people will attend the 66th National Peanut Festival, starting today, it took a lot of work from many people to get the festival ready for primetime.

Vendors, animal trainers, carnival workers and farmers were working into Thursday night preparing for Friday’s grand opening.

The folks at B & C Ranch were so hard at work preparing for the Adorable Animal Actors show, they haven’t been able to enjoy the sights and sounds of the Wiregrass.

“We don’t get much of a chance to do sight-seeing, because we’re so busy,” said Catherine Carden, who said the ranch has been coming to the festival for three years now. “We have performing camels, horses, dogs, ponies and elephants. There’s never any shortage of work for us to do.”

Frances Taylor and her family has been setting up booths at the Peanut Festival for nearly a decade.

This year, they’re in charge of selling roasted nuts and smoothies, and Taylor is particularly excited about a smoothie concoction she’s developed.

“I came up with a delicious recipe for peanut butter smoothies, and it can be mixed in with any of the other flavors, strawberry-banana, wildberry or sour apple,” she said.

Taylor, who hails from Crawford, Miss., has seen a lot of festivals, but this one stands out in her mind.

“This is one of the cleanest shows there is,” she said. “The people in the town are wonderful. We meet so many people and try to be a Christian influence on everyone we come in contact with. More than money, we try to have an impact on people’s lives”

New Brockton native Steve Adkison has a booth at the Peanut Festival for the first time this year, and he’s not sure what to expect.

“Access coming in and out has been really nice, everybody’s been real polite and courteous, and the nearby vendors are very nice,” said Adkison, who is representing his company, Oasis. “It’s been a pleasure so far.”

He hopes to be able to sell an organic fertilizer known as ReNew.

“We do a grow sock. Our product is called ReNew, and these socks we’re laying out, they’re ready to plant,” he said. “You buy two, three, four, and you can custom order 10 or 20-foot links, do all your bedding plants, vegetable gardens, all ready to grow.”

Gates open at 4 p.m. Friday, officially kicking off the National Peanut Festival.