63rd annual Maine Potato Blossom Festival
maintains focus on
family, fun and agricultural roots
Staff Writer
FORT FAIRFIELD — Whether it’s fun, family, heritage or home that determines which events receive your admittance during the perpetually busy summer, the 63rd annual Potato Blossom Festival in Fort Fairfield has all the popular festival amenities with some suprising crowd-drawing extras: where can festival participants test their skills at racing potato cars, tumble through a giant vat of mashed potatoes in a friendly wrestling match, shake their groove thing to Motor Booty Affair and relax while one of the best parades in The County rolls by?
Many popular activities are returning to the festival this year according to Fort Fairfield Chamber of Commerce President Karen Peers, but the number of returning activities is dwarfed by the number of former Fort Fairfielders who find the festival to be a perfect opportunity to visit home.
“It seems that everyone from Fort Fairfield plans their vacations around the Festival to come home,” Peers said, adding that she’s received calls county-wide from festival enthusiasts looking for details on dates and times.
The Potato Blossom Festival supports family fun and community involvement while simultaneously highlighting one of the founding industries of Aroostook County; each year, the Maine Potato Board honors their Farm Family of the Year at the annual Industry Dinner in the Fort Fairfield Community Center Gymnasium. The potato industry has deep roots in the county and many events throughout the week highlight that agricultural history; the Farm Equipment Display, for example, is one popular way that the Festival pays homage to the industry that keeps the potato blossoms blooming.
Potatoes are, of course, abundantly grown in Aroostook County to the extent that the festival is offering some creative uses for the tubers. For instance, “the Caribou Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) is bringing a new event over to the Festival and they have children ages 4 to 14 build a car out of a potato and then they race them,” said Peers.
CCCI has apparently identified an aerodynamic way of looking at the spud and participants will race potato-made cars head-to-head (or in the potato’s case, eye-to-eye) during Xtreme Potato Racing to see which spud speeds supreme down the track.
Mashed Potato Wrestling, another fun potato-based activity, uses 500 pounds of potato flakes to help participants become submerged in the county’s agricultural heritage. Spectators on the periphery of the laughable brawls will be merely specked with flying mashed potatoes bits but the message maintains its meaning: Maine means potatoes.
County-wide community support is especially needed this year with the addition of two more crowns to the regal Potato Blossom court; local queens need familiar faces to cheer them on as they compete to see who will be Little Miss Potato Blossom, Junior Miss Potato Blossom, Miss Potato Blossom and for the first time ever, Miss Teen Potato Blossom and Miss Pre-Teen Potato Blossom.
Many queens will be attending the new Zumbafest before their pageants; a two-hour event, Zumbafest is a new event to the festival this year that mixes an hour of heart pumping Zumba exercise paired with an hour of pampering and entertainment.
Moving to a different beat, the amusement rides are sure to get any Festival-goer’s heart pumping as well; while absent from the previous year’s repertoires, the rides make their highly anticipated return to the Festival this year and have brought with them a couple of Festival-favorites from the past — the Adult Dance and the Car Show.
The Adult Dance is different from the Street Dance; it’s held indoors and is only for those over 21 years old. An additional youth dance will be held simultaneously that evening so that everyone will have something to do in Fort Fairfield on Saturday night, July 17.
With so many exciting new events, festival-frequenters can rest-assured knowing that their favorite events are still in the lineup.
“Our most popular event is the parade, which will be on Saturday, July 17,” said Peers. She mentioned that the parade frequently packs the streets with over 10,000 people.
Among the Festival staples, Motor Booty Affair will be funkaliciously stepping their way up to northern Maine on Friday, July 16 for the Street Dance and the fireworks display is scheduled at dusk on the last evening of the Festival on Sunday, July 18.
Additional information can by found by visiting the www.potatoblossom.org or by contacting the chamber at 472-3802.
