OPINION: Pecan Festival a successful community event for entire Pee Dee

By all accounts, the sixth annual Pecan Festival was a huge success.

The annual street-style festival seems to get bigger and better every year, with estimates putting as many as 55,000 people in downtown Florence for this year’s event Nov. 7.

The 2009 festival dovetailed with the first Pee Dee Blues Bash, boasting 24 shows in four days. The bash kicked off Nov. 5 in Lake City and concluded Nov. 8 at Florence’s new Barnes Street Activity Center with a performance by Bishopville native Drink Small, also known as “the Blues Doctor.”

At the Pecan Festival alone, five stages hosted performances by bands featuring every type of music from blues to gospel to pop to hip-hop and country entertained the crowd.

It’s clear the award-winning festival has spread beyond the boundaries of Florence’s city limits, especially now with the addition of the Blue Bash broadening the appeal to music lovers.

Parents find the event family-friendly with the Kids’ Fun Zone, sponsored by McLeod Health, offering face-painting, inflatables, balloon sculpting, a petting zoo, and carnival and pony rides for children.

More than 200 vendors at the festival were on hand to cater to shoppers seeking eclectic items reflecting some of the best of what the region has to offer.

And then there’s the food, featuring the star attraction, the pecan. A Pecan Cook-off showcased recipes featuring the local delicacy in addition to festival fare like kettle corn, fresh lemonade, cotton candy, sno-cones, funnel cakes and corn dogs.

The event also provided opportunities for better health, such as the Run Like a Nut 5K 10K races and 1K Fun Walk, sponsored by The Fitness Forum, that attracted more participants than ever. Nonprofit organizations also used the festival as a way to spread the word about the good they do in the community and how festival-goers can lend a helping hand.

There is room for improvement, however. Parking for the event continues to be an issue. The problem was exacerbated by the construction of the new Francis Marion University Center for the Performing Arts, the site of which was used for parking in years past.

Then there are the festival-goers who failed to use the multitude of bins positioned throughout the festival grounds for trash disposal. While city crews had the area spic-and-span by the next morning in time for Sunday services at downtown churches, they surely had their work cut out for them because of the litterbugs who plagued the previous day’s event.

But there’s no question organizers deserve congratulations for a job well done this year, and sponsors deserve thanks for supporting this premier Southeastern event.

City staff, including members of the police department, also get kudos for keeping the event organized, safe and clean.

But perhaps the most thanks should be given to all those who attended the event and made it so successful this year.

Because of their efforts, the Pecan Festival has become a truly community event for the entire Pee Dee.

— Unsigned editorials represent the views of this newspaper. Editorial Board members are Mark Laskowski (regional publisher), James Bennett (regional editor), Sam Bundy (sports editor), Kimberly Ginfrida (news editor), David Johnson (regional circulation director), Charles Tomlinson (Lake City News & Post editor) and Jackie Torok (metro editor).