The Tradition Continues....

LINCOLN -- The focus is on apples on Lincoln Square this weekend but lots of other activities will be going on as well.

The Square will come alive with music, arts and crafts booths, concessions and thousands of people.

The 42nd Arkansas Apple Festival set for Oct. 6-8 will start at 9 a.m. Friday with the opening of arts and crafts booths. The festival closes at 5 p.m. Sunday.

While the Lincoln area no longer has active apple orchards, the Arkansas Apple Festival continues to pay tribute to the industry that once dominated western Washington County. The early revolution of Lincoln is directly related to the growth and success of orchards in the area.

The Apple Festival brochure describes the importance of apples to Lincoln this way: "It has been said by many that apples made the town."

The festival provides the opportunity for Lincoln to remember its history and keep its history alive.

Rhonda Hulse, co-chairwoman of the festival committee, said the 2017 Apple Festival will have about 120 vendors taking up 138 spots, the most Hulse remembers in the past 12 years.

"I've been doing the arts and crafts for 12 years and we had 60 spots reserved 12 years ago," Hulse said.

Of these vendors, three booths continue to be the most popular every year.

Volunteers peel and slice fresh apples by hand throughout the three days and hand out free samples to visitors. In another booth, volunteers give out free samples of apple cider and sell gallons of the apple cider. A third booth sponsored by Lincoln Masonic Lodge #615 sells bushels of handpicked apples.

Hulse said volunteers will probably hand out 100 bushels of apple slices, give away 100 gallons of cider in sample size cups and sell around 600 gallons of apple cider.

The weekend has something to offer all ages.

The annual parade will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday. Entries include tractors, floats, vintage cars, bands, horses and more. The kids' zone will have pony and train rides and inflatables for children to play on.

One of the oldest activities at the festival is a children's apple core throwing contest and it will be held at noon Saturday.

A new event this year is a "Prettiest Pooch" dog contest, sponsored by Lincoln Pound Pals, a non-profit organization formed to help the city's animal pound. The dog contest will be 1 p.m. Saturday in front of Simmons Bank.

The festival's talent show starts at 6 p.m. Saturday at the American Legion building.

Adults can browse and shop craft booths or bring a chair to sit, relax and enjoy different genres of music.

Visitors also can take their pick of food choices. Festival food this year will include funnel cakes, cornbread and beans, homemade apple dumplings, barbecue, hamburgers, corndogs, apple butter and kettle corn.

Perfect fall weather helped the festival have record attendance the past two years and committee members hope crisp, fall temperatures will come again this year.

"The weather makes all the difference in the world," Hulse said.

Hulse said the Apple Festival is a wonderful tradition for the town. She moved to Lincoln when she was in first grade and remembers going to the Apple Festival and looking forward to it as a child.

"It's important to keep it going," Hulse said, adding that Irwin also grew up in Lincoln and wants to keep the tradition going as well.

She said many volunteers help throughout the weekend but pointed out the festival could not happen without city staff. City employees work behind the scenes to handle all type of tasks, from cleaning up trash to bringing more apples for volunteers to slice.

"They literally do everything we need them to do," Hulse said.

Several Lincoln High School groups benefit from the Arkansas Apple Festival by sponsoring fundraisers. They park cars, help serve food, clean tables.

Hulse said she's not sure why the number of vendors has increased the past 10 years but thinks one reason is that the attendance is up.

"I think we've grown it quite a bit over the last 10 years and more vendors are willing to come when we draw more people."