Hope Watermelon Festival

From Hope Watermelon Festival Website:

The modern day Hope Watermelon festival features numerous activities including Arts & Crafts, food, entertainment and other family-oriented activities. Nearly 300 Arts and Crafts booths will be set up at the festival grounds.

The Arts and Crafts come from a 6 state area. The festival also features dozens of food booths, serving everything from burgers and corn dogs to pork rinds and "chicken-on-a-stick".

Local civic clubs also hold dinners featuring such down-home fare as locally grown smoked chicken and golden fried catfish. The Watermelon Festival features a variety of musical talent each year. What else can you do at the festival? You can participate in a 5K race, take in a dog show, enter the "Watermelon Idol" talent contest or play "hillbilly horseshoes".

The Watermelon Olympics will also be held, pitting local teams against each other in such events as the melon-toss. There's also an antique car show, an antique engine show featuring old steam engines, and a volleyball tournament. The festival also features a number of melon-oriented events such as the seed-spitting contest and the Watermelon eating contest And what of the famous Hope melons? Those attending will be able to see some of the bigger specimens of the year, some tipping the scales at close to 200 pounds. Ice-cold watermelon will be sold by the slice for $1.25 each day and numerous melon growers will have whole melons on sale at the festival for visitors to take home.