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By Carey Reeder | Managing Editor

The 77th annual Chilton County Peach Festival this year came with a completely revamped schedule that aimed to make things more comfortable for visitors, and extend the spotlight shined on the county’s peach industry and its farmers. These changes led to huge positives, and a June to remember for residents and organizers.

The biggest event in Chilton County for decades, the Peach Festival was normally a week-long event. In past years, the festivities would start on a Saturday in late June with the Peach Run and Peach Cook-off in the morning, followed by the first of four Peach Queen Pageants in the evening. The rest of the pageants would be on weeknights the following week crowning four new queens to represent the Chilton County peach farmers.

These would all lead up to a momentous day in Clanton that started in the morning with the Peach Parade through downtown, followed by the Peach Auction right after the parade. The afternoon would feature the Peach Jam Jubilee, putting arguably the Peach Festival’s three biggest community events on the same day. This led to attendees and organizers having an extremely long day from 9 a.m. until the late evening hours to enjoy all the pride and pageantry that comes with those events.

To combat those issues, representatives from the City of Clanton, the Chilton County Chamber of Commerce, the Clanton Lions Club and the City of Clanton Arts Council collaborated to put the plans together for this year’s Peach Festival last December. Changes to the schedule included moving the Peach Jam Jubilee to the first weekend in June, and making it a two-night event. From there, the Peach Queen Pageants, Peach Cook-off, Peach Run, Peach City Fest and the Roy Wood Peach Festival Art Show would be spaced out across the month of June to create a month-long celebration. The Peach Auction and Peach Parade bookended the festival on June 29 to close out the month of celebrations, keeping that tradition alive amongst the changes.

This year, the changes produced cooler weather for the Peach Jam Jubilee, as cool as June weather in central Alabama can get, and more opportunities for the community to recognize and give back to the peach industry and its farmers.

“We changed the date of the Peach Jam to hopefully get some cooler weather, and it worked out perfectly. Next year it may not, but this year it did,” Clanton Mayor Jeff Mims said. “Everyone did well this year, and I think it was because we spread it out across the month. We have been doing the events on Friday nights (during June), but this year we decided to do it this way, and I do not think next year we have to worry about working on it too hard.”

Many of the events during the Peach Festival this year reached large milestones, like the 20th annual Peach run and the 41st annual Roy Wood Peach Festival Art Show. Spacing the events out across the entire month of June gave each one more opportunity to shine and have their own moments. More opportunities to advertise for all of the events was a benefit as well, which also meant people had more time to come out and support.

“This was a great year (for the Peach Auction), and the farmers needed that,” Glenn McGriff, Chilton County Peach Auction Chairman, said. “Our peach growers and their families work so hard, and to go through what they did last year, it broke my heart. This year, the good Lord just blessed them, everyone had peaches, and I am so proud and happy for them and their families. This is a peach county.”

The changes kept the bigger events of the Peach Festival, like the auction, at the forefront of their mission, but it also helped establish newer events in the rotation. The Peach City Fest had its third annual event during this year’s festival, and it was the first time it was held as a one-night event. Holding it on one night made the crowd bigger than the previous two years, and the impact in downtown Clanton from the event was felt more.

“We had people come in from all over the state,” Mims said.

Executive Director of the Chilton County Chamber of Commerce Rachel Martin said that the total number of people that attended Peach Festival events during June is not final, but it ranges in the tens of thousands across the entire month. This year’s Peach Jam Jubilee featured the largest number of food trucks and vendors on hand, another record broken during the festival.

With cooler weather prevailing, an abundant crop and huge attendance throughout the month, the changes made to the Peach Festival this year seemed to enhance the peachy experience even more.

“The Clanton Lions Club has a lot of people that work hard on this,” McGriff said. “I have been involved in the Peach Festival for 40 years, and this is probably one of the smoothest and best festivals I have ever seen. This community comes together when we need one another, and we have each other’s back.”

Martin, McGriff, Mims and the other representatives and delegates will meet again near the end of this year to determine if the changes made to the Peach Festival are here to stay, or if more tweaks to the schedule will be made.