The N.C. Pecan Harvest
Festival brings an estimated
18,000 people to downtown
Whiteville every November,
but a small number of hardworking
people make the free
annual event possible.
Said festival director Joan
Ward, "The committee is so
well organized and really know
what they’re doing, so the job
of director is just to keep the
wheels rolling. It isn’t hard at
all. Some of them, like Suzanne
King and Sara Thompson have
served since the beginning.
I think Charlie Duncan has
organized every parade since
the first one.”
Not only does the festival
offer free entertainment
for adults and children but,
through vendor fees, it actually
generates enough money to
fund a scholarship for a high
school graduate from within
the county each year.
The only portion of the festival
that costs the public any
money is the Friday Queen’s
Luncheon and Home Tour. Said
King, the meal is provided at
cost and doesn’t create profit
for the festival, but the modest
tour charge does help to
recoup just a little bit of the
money that the festival costs
for bands, children’s activities
and publicity. Tour home owners
are not paid for the use of
their homes.
A combination luncheon/
tour wristband costs only $20,
which King calls "a great deal,”
and a tour-only wristband is
$10.
Tour-only admission can
still be bought at the Reuben
Brown House on the day of
the festival, but luncheon/tour
reservations needed to be made
by Wednesday, Oct. 25.
A Look Back
King was on the scene in
2002 when the "very successful
Harvest Festival,” originally
begun by Ginger Littrell of
the Whiteville Downtown Development
Committee in 1994,
began to be transformed into
the NCPHF.
Members of the Chamber
of Commerce met that year
with county commissioner
Kip Godwin and some of the
Harvest Festival committee
members, she said, to brainstorm
about how they could
get more people to come visit
Columbus County.
"We needed a brand,” she
said, to set the festival apart as
unique. "We thought, ‘What do
we have here?’ and the answer
was ‘Pecan trees.’ Whether
you’re in the city or the county,
there are pecan trees everywhere.”
Godwin then mentioned
that the N.C. Pecan Growers
Association was looking for a
way to promote "the superior
nut.” King got in contact with
the NCPGA’s president, Bill
Bunn.
King and Cathy Lashley of
the festival committee visited
the next meeting of the growers’
group to suggest a partnership.
Whiteville’s already
well-established festival could
become the home base that
the pecan growers needed,
they said, while pecans could
become the brand that the festival
needed.
It did not take long for the
festival committee and the
growers to reach an agreement,
and the annual event
took on the name "Pecan Harvest
Festival” in 2003.
"Cathy Lashley and Thomas
McLam were our first directors”
of the Pecan Harvest
Festival, King said.
Proud to be Free
The committee’s goals were
to promote pecan education
with a celebration that would
be free to the public, unlike
some festivals that charge
admission, King said. As far
as atmosphere, she said, "We
decided to make it like a mini
Azalea Festival by having a
celebrity queen, a parade marshal,
and a court of belles and
military academy cadets.”
The NCPGA sold trees and
nuts. The forestry museum was
a perfect location for the wellrounded
educational program
designed by N.C. State University’s
Mike Parker. In addition
to scientific talks about pecans,
there were demonstrations of
tree shakers used to bring the
nuts down at harvest time. N.C.
Boys and Girls Home lent a
shaker for the demonstrations.
Now operating as the N.C.
Museum of Natural Sciences
at Whiteville, the facility continues
to offer educational
events coinciding with the festival,
whether pecan-oriented
or otherwise. Last year a traveling
animal exhibit was available.
Primary school students
attend a program on pecans every
other year, still organized
by Parker, whom King calls "a
brilliant professor.”
This year the museum will
host a special event focusing on
Native American history, arts
and culture, said Natural Sciences
Education Coordinator
Kellie Lewis. An upcoming article
will describe the program.
The first year home tours
were offered was 2003. "Over
80 homes have been opened
for tours in the past 15 years,”
King said.
"We have been blessed with
our entertainment, and motivational
speaker and author
Stedman Graham spoke two
years,” said King.
Since then, said King, she is
proud of the way the festival
has grown. "I always feel so
fortunate,” she said, and she
believes the other members of
the planning committee feel
the same way.
Originally, the job of festival
director was meant to be
a one-year position, but "our
directors have found that it’s
so much fun they want to stay
for two years.
"Our chairs over the years
have been wonderful to work
with,” said King. "We’re all
volunteers. Nobody gets paid
anything. Most of us are people
who have jobs, but we enjoy
doing this.”
Joan Ward is in her second
year as director. Other current
planning board members
include these hard-working
individuals in the following
leadership roles:
Steven Bryan, website and
parade; Cody Bunch, kids’
block; Charlie Duncan, parade;
Meleah Evers, cooking contest;
Sally Mann, Scott Kelly
and Jonathan Hester, vendor
relations; Suzanne King and
Sara Thompson, luncheon
and home tour; Boyce Lennon,
car show; Jeannie Fisher and
Mary Alice Stanley, belles;
and Rossie Ward, liaison with
NCPGA.
