Fairly new to Grant Parish, Wallace says it did not take him long to figure out how this particular hometown festival connects generations of people through their memories of the Louisiana Pecan Festival. “The older generations talk about their memories from the early days of the festival, and the kids today are making new memories they will one day be able to share,” says Wallace.
The festival will kick off Friday, November 4th, with the traditional “Blessing of the Pecan Crops” at 8:00am on the Main Stage on Front Street in downtown Colfax. Vendor booths, which feature everything from hand-made jewelry and jellies to hand-painted T-shirts, will open at 8:30am on Friday. The cooking contest, in which each entry must contain pecans in some form or shape, will be featured on the Main Stage, also at 8:30am.
“Everyone always wants to win the coveted first prize for the best pecan pie,” Jennifer Carter of Colfax, chirps. Carter, who says she always buys a pecan pie at the Country Store, recalls her mother entering a pie contest in the late 70s using her grandmother’s favorite recipe. “She did win a ribbon, but not first place,” Carter recalls. The cooking contest has been carried through to every year of the festival. The continuity of the contest has yielded some friendly family competition for years, she adds.
From 9:00am until 12:00noon on Friday, Children’s Day begins in the Colfax City Park. All of the events and activities designed for the children were donated by area businesses, and most are free. A children’s art contest was held earlier this month, and the artwork will be displayed in the Country Store. At 2:00pm, there will be a Kids Pie Eating Contest. At 12:00noon Friday, the carnival rides open as well as the antique tractor show. The Louisiana Pecanettes, the festival’s ambassadors, will perform several dance routines throughout the festival and during Saturday’s parade. The Pecanettes are a group of girls from local high schools who travel and perform dance routines at fairs and festivals throughout the state promoting the Pecan Festival. The Queen’s Ball will round out Friday’s festivities from 8:00pm until 12:00midnight at the Grant Civic Center. The band, Static, will provide the entertainment and music at the ball. This year’s queen, Jenna Ray, will reign over the festival and be presented at the ball. The Queen’s Pageant, held in mid-October, officially kicks off the festival and is one of the most-attended events.
Vendor booths will open at 8:00am Saturday, as well as the antique tractor show. The Grand Parade will begin at 10:00am. Vonice and Larry Wainwright have been named honorees of the parade. At 12:00noon, the winners of the parade floats and bands will be recognized and the queen and her court will be presented on the Main Stage. The Pecanettes perform at 1:15pm, and again at 4:30pm. The group, Rachet, will play at 2:00pm, and there will be a street dance starting at 5:30pm. The Joel Martin Project will perform at the dance. A big fireworks display will begin at 8:30pm.
On Sunday, November 6th, the festival begins with a church service at 11:00am. The vendor booths do not open until 12:30pm, and the Wehunt Band will play at 2:00pm on the Main Stage. The festival winds down at 5:00pm on Sunday.
Each January, volunteers get together to start planning for the next November’s Pecan Festival, according to Rona Barnes, a Pecan Festival board member. “We work with a lot of different companies to put together this celebration of community. It cost to put it together, but it’s an excuse to have one of the largest family reunions – to sit on the logs that line the streets and visit with your neighbors,” Barnes says.
In 1969, Governor Jimmie Davis was the special guest, and a local girl, Nancy Dean of Colfax, was crowned Centennial Queen. Several thousand local residents and visitors took part in the event, and with its success, organizers began to plan even more activities and festivities for the next year, and the Louisiana Pecan Festival was born.
The decision to celebrate the pecan in a festival was an easy one since many of the area farmers grow the crop, and pecans were native to the area. Pecans were staples of the diets of the local Native Americans, and when the settlers began arriving in the Colfax area from the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, large plantations grew pecans along with their other crops. Wild pecans were grafted and new varieties cultivated, and soon the crop flourished in the rich river land soils. Nearly every yard had one or two trees that produced enough pecans to provide the landowners with a small money crop.
During the early years of the festival, “Frontier Days” was the dominant theme, as a tribute to the pioneers that settled the area. Remnants of those early years still stand today. The Country Store is a permanent fixture on Front Street in Colfax and only opens during the festival. “The Old Train Depot, is our Country Store, and in the beginning you could purchase pecans, quilts, coonskin caps, jams, jellies, pies, cakes, and candy to name a few things. Now, you can also find pecan syrup, pecan meal, pecan oil, cheese, T-shirts, posters, and the list goes on. Most are volunteer home-made items,” Barnes adds.
Throughout the ‘70s and early ‘80s, special guests were invited to the “Frontier Days” -themed festival. Fess Parker, who portrayed Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett on television, James Drury, television’s “The Virginian”, Buck Taylor, Dale Robertson and Ken Curtis of “Gunsmoke” fame, were among the celebrity guests. Even Sorrell Booke, “Boss Hogg” from The Dukes of Hazzard, came as a special guest. “Boss Hogg was all decked out in his white suit and 10-gallon Texas hat. He was very funny and very friendly,” recalls Catherine Johnson, of Colfax.
Until the late 1990’s the festival was a two-day event. But as the festival flourished and had more vendors, it was extended to include Sunday. For the families and folks who have attended the festival through the years, the celebration has brought a plethora of memories. “The Grand Ball is a great time to dress up in your finery and dance the night away with family and friends. The parade is wonderful. It was then and is now. There are pictures in the festival office of some of the first floats and entries: 1969, boats, one with a skier, Coon dogs, with a real raccoon up a tree, horse and buggies, and of course there were dignitaries, mayors, politicians, governors, and the likes, and marching bands. All of them following the same parade route as in the first parade,” Barnes says, adding that the parade in now quite longer than it used to be.
In the first years of the festival, there was a local area set aside for actual, period, military enactments. Usually a battle during the Civil War was enacted. There were turkey shoots and donkey basketball games which caused uproarious laughter in the stands. Different events have come and gone, and new ones have been added. The costume contest was always a way to show off the craft of sewing. Bonnets, prairie dresses with high necklines, long sleeves and long hemlines, coon skin caps with fringed trousers and shirts, accessorized with a muzzleloader, and Scarlet O’Hara dresses, with full hoop skirts, hair ringlets and all were worn by the various contestants. “I will never forget my little three-year-old daughter, Bonnie, winning her category in the costume contest. I had made her a bonnet and prairie dress. She got to ride on a float with Fess Parker during the parade,” recalls Ruth Blakeley, formerly of Dry Prong, and who won several ribbons from the cooking contest many years ago.
“The festival gives us that connectivity that goes missing in our family the rest of the year. It is filled with so many memories for us,” she adds, “And to me, it does not get any better than that. So, we are ready to ‘let the good times roll’ this weekend.”