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June 20, 2009

Folks find fun

On a hot summer day

By Rachel Brown, rachelbrown@daltoncitizen.com

There’s just one thing Dalton resident Vickie Mathis would change about the Saturday beer tasting festival on King Street — move it to the shade.

“I think it’s a great idea,” she said of the event, a fundraiser for needy children in the Dalton, Murray and Whitfield school systems. “There’s a breeze, but it’s still really hot.”

The festival was a joint effort of the Downtown Dalton Development Authority, whose mission is to promote downtown; and Keeping Kids First, a newly formed organization that raises money for schools to dole out to children who have short-term emergency needs like for food, medicine and clothing. Some 70 percent of the proceeds from the $25 ticket sales goes to the charity.

Ringgold resident Blake Gober said he came with his friends and likes the fact that the festival was outdoors and had several local bands playing.

“I’m glad that Dalton is doing something like this,” he said.

Festival volunteer Sherry Headrick, a fourth-grade teacher at Blue Ridge School, said the proceeds will help students who can’t afford their medication because their parents have been laid off from work or they have other hardships.

“I’m in a rural, poverty-stricken school,” she said. “It will be helpful.”

Festival-goers in Eton battled 100-degree heat in another first-year event to see Barney Fife impersonator Sammy Sawyer and several other characters from The Andy Griffth Show. Mayberry Day was a non-religious, community-wide event put on by Faith Worship Center in Chatsworth. The all-day festival at Eton park had drawn 1,000 visitors by 1 p.m., organizers said.

In addition to the Andy Griffith Show characters, there was also a Mayberry jail in which people could pay money to have someone incarcerrated by Barney Fife. Money raised for bail went toward charity.

Other activities included Opie’s fishing pond, the Blue Bird Diner where participants could buy food, a three-legged race for children, an antique cars show, tractor-pulled “train” rides, horse rides and face painting.

Chatsworth resident DJ Chambers, 11, said his favorite aspect of the day was seeing the classic car show.

“I want one of those red ones out there,” he exclaimed in between gulps of lemonade.

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