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Titus festival draws a crowd
By Peggy Blackburn
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Downtown Titus, normally quiet and uncrowded, was a little different Saturday as hundreds of people congregated for the community’s eighth annual bluegrass festival. Despite high gas prices and a detour due to bridge construction, the festival attracted more than 800 attendees.
“It’s down from last year, but about the same as the year before that,” said Tom Hinton, festival committee president. “We have a nice crowd and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves.”
Hinton said entertainers, vendors and spectators come from around the state each year for the festival.
“The people attending are from all over and we have a band from up around Anniston and another from the Dothan area,” he said. “The other is from Montgomery. Another group was scheduled to be here, but couldn’t come because of a death in one of their families. They’re from east Alabama.”
Visitors were entertained by Southern Gentlemen, the Bluegrass Biscuits and Kelli Johnson; and they also had the chance to browse arts and crafts booths and purchase lunch.
In addition, attendees could buy event T-shirts and smoked Boston Butts. They could also purchase raffle tickets on guitars and mandolins.
“We appreciate the people who donated items for us to raffle,” said Hinton. “And we also want to thank our sponsors. Their contributions go to pay the bands.”
Hinton’s wife, Patty, who also volunteers to make the event successful, was pleased with the festival too.
“Everybody has said they’ve had a really fun day. The weather has been wonderful and the kids activities went over really well,” she noted. “Also everyone is very happy with our new outside concession stand this year.”
Proceeds from each year’s festival are used for continued re-s-to-ration and improvements to the Titus Community Center, which was built in 1928.
“We were able to do some work on the community center and upgrade the stage with last year’s proceeds,” said Hinton. “We also added the new concession stand.”
While no firm decision has been made for the use of this year’s profits, Hinton said the group has discussed refinishing the community center’s hardwood floors.
He said the event will be scheduled again next year.
“We’ll start working on it at about 6:05 p.m. today,” Hinton said. “There’s a lot of planning and work that goes into something like this.”
