One of Georgia’s oldest hometown festivals marked another successful year Saturday as thousands visited Clarkesville. The 62nd annual Mountain Laurel Festival attracted people of all ages from all over the region.
The day-long event ran from 9 a.m. until late afternoon. Throughout the day, visitors enjoyed various activities, from storytelling and tours to arts and crafts and shopping. Dozens of vendor tents filled the downtown square. Food trucks filled tummies as live music filled the hot, humid mountain air.
Festival organizers must have been relieved that the rain held off as people milled around town under heavy grey skies.
MORE Photo Gallery: Mountain Laurel Festival
Homespun fun
Now in its 62nd year, the Mountain Laurel Festival celebrates the flowering plant for which it’s named. The delicate white and pink flower fills the Blue Ridge each year, welcoming the arrival of spring.
Keeping with this floral theme, the festival parade used to feature hand-drawn wagons adorned with flowers. This year’s parade featured over 60 vehicles of varying styles and sizes, with a few floats mixed in.
Outgoing Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell was the grand marshal. He joined Miss Mountain Laurel Pageant contestants and county commission and school board candidates in a slow, steady march down Washington Street.
Churches and civic groups joined the parade, hosted this year and historically by the Clarkesville Lions Club.
The Habersham Central High School Band of Blue performed, their notes mingled mid-air with the sound of police car and fire truck sirens. Children—and quite a few adults—snatched up candy from the street as the passing paraders tossed treats from their vehicles and floats.
It was another day of homespun fun in the Blue Ridge foothills—the kind that hearkens back to a simpler time. That simplicity and the pleasure found in keeping company with family and friends are what keep this festival going.
As it has for the past 13 years, the annual Volunteers for Literacy Duck Race on the Soque River capped off the day’s events. This year’s winners kept the prize money close to home. Clarkesville Firefighter Mack Appleton won the $1,000 top prize. Habersham County Clerk of Court David Wall placed second, winning $500. Brian Garrison of Garrison Farms, one of the event sponsors, took third in the race, winning $250.
Proceeds from the duck race go to support literacy programs in Habersham County.
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