How to go
What: Preble County Pork Festival
Where: Preble County Fairgrounds, 722 S. Franklin St., Eaton
When: 6:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Booths open at 8 a.m. Parade through downtown Eaton starts at 10:30 a.m. Saturday.
Cost: Free
More info: www.porkfestival.org
Fall festival fans have a chance to go hog wild this weekend at the Preble County Pork Festival.
The 41st annual weekend event features arts and crafts vendors, family-friendly entertainment and, of course, food booths selling pork in many forms, said festival coordinator Nancy Huggins.
Kicking off the weekend’s events at 10:30 a.m. Saturday will be what Huggins called “one of the nicest parades around.” It will feature many local high school bands and travel through downtown Eaton.
Entertainment options throughout the weekend include magic shows, gospel music and performances by a capella group Tonic Sol-fa, Huggins said.
Around 500 arts and crafts vendors also will be peddling their wares at the weekend event at the Preble County Fairgrounds, Huggins said.
All the festival’s events and parking are free.
This is the first year the event will feature corporate sponsors, Huggins said.
Rumpke and Buchy Foods are sponsoring the event, which allows the festival committee to keep prices for festivalgoers low even as costs have gone up, she said.
Hungry visitors can pig out at a sausage-and-pancake breakfast, the barbecue pork chop smorgasbord and the sandwiches at the short-order restaurant.
“Some of those sandwiches are just out of sight, and the pork chop is great,” Huggins said.
There also is a country store selling raw meat at great prices “so you can pack it up and take it home,” Huggins said.
For children, there are pig races, a kiddie tractor-pull, a petting zoo, safety demonstrations and plenty of hands-on activities in the educational building, said Cassandra Newton, member of the board of directors for the festival and chairwoman for education.
Newton and her husband, Jim, are hog farmers who, with their families, have been involved with the festival since it began.
“You will find a lot of that at the pork festival,” Newton said. “It’s a lot of family volunteers through many generations.”
Newton now centers her festival efforts on agriculture education. This year, the focus will be on animal welfare, Newton said.
Newton also chairs the committee that chooses the recipients of the pork festival’s scholarships.
The festival awards two $1,500 college scholarships to local residents each year, and offers scholarships for students at five county high schools.
Huggins said it takes around 1,400 local volunteers to keep the pork festival running each year. The group is a nonprofit, with all proceeds going back into projects within Preble County.
The event has poured $1.8 million into the county in the last 40 years, Huggins said.
Preble County Sheriff Mike Simpson said the festival draws between 100,000 and 120,000 visitors over a two-day period.
“The crowds are very heavy, but normally it goes pretty smoothly,” Simpson said.
Eaton police Sgt. Eric Beeghly said his department has all of its officers out working during the parade, then helping with crowd control after.
“We get quite a few people in our little town,” Beeghly said.
“Besides going to the pork festival, they visit our other merchants in town, too, which is really great for the city.”
“It’s a nice atmosphere and friendly people,” he said.
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