Published: October 11, 2008 07:42 pm            

Hundreds flock to Pumpkin Festival

POCAHONTAS, Va. — Music, laughter, fellowship and the smell of fried bologna filled the clear blue skies above the Synan Farm atop Peel Chestnut Mountain as pumpkin-lovers everywhere crammed their cars into every nook and cranny they could find and smiled their way through a warm and beautiful autumn afternoon.

“It’s so fitting to enjoy bluegrass music up here,” CharLy Markwart said as she sat in the shade of a huge canvas tent directly across from the Synan Farm stage. “This is what I think of when I think of bluegrass music. The music is so real. The people are real. This place is full of authenticity.”

Markwart came to Bluefield College to study journalism and immersed herself in the traditional old time and bluegrass music of the region. She earned her undergraduate degree at BC this May, and decided to stay and pursue news writing and music. She is a reporter for the Princeton Times and recently released her first CD, “I Found Home.” Markwart has been honing her skills as a mandolin player since she came to the area.

“I’ve been coming here for the last two years,” Markwart said. “I learn so much from everyone here. I was also here for the July 3rd events for the past two years.” Although she and her band, Diamonds in the Rough, performed early in the afternoon, Markwart sat in the front of the audience listening to every other group that performed.

“Years ago, when I was working for the power company, I spent a weekend working up in Milton,” Russell Synan said. Russell and his wife, Pat Synan, still live on the old family home place on top of Peel Chestnut Mountain. “They had a pumpkin festival up there, and I remember thinking that we could do the same thing down here.”

This year marked the 15th year for the festival. “It’s my first time here,” Roscoe, the Princeton Rays’ mascot said. Roscoe and Jim Holland, Princeton Rays general manager, visited with the crowd. Roscoe was a big favorite with the younger set, and even waltzed with some of the ladies enjoying the music.

“I’ve been frying the bologna here for the past 10 years,” Jean Gillespie said. “The fried bologna sandwiches have become kind of a tradition. People love bologna and they love the hot-dogs.”

Gillespie said she didn’t make a lot of fried bologna sandwiches until she started cooking them over the charcoal grill at the pumpkin festival. “My kids didn’t like them,” she said. The waiting time for a fried bologna sandwich Saturday afternoon was about 20 minutes to a half-hour, but no one seemed to mind.

“We went through five, 12-pound cases of bologna in the first three hours,” Gillespie said, estimating the bologna consumption at 20 pounds per hour. “We have plenty more left.”

Gillespie was a kindergarten aide at Dudley Elementary School for 30 years. “Three little girls came up to me and hugged me today — we’ll they’re not little anymore, they’re teenagers,” Gillespie said. “I hadn’t seen them in years.”

Joe Wilson, a member of the Foot Loose Cloggers from Spartansburg, S.C., traveled to Peel Chestnut Mountain to entertain the crowd. “This is my wife’s home,” Wilson said. His wife is Rita Synan Wilson.

At any given moment, several hundred people were at the farm enjoying the music, fellowship, food and the wagon rides. “We’ve had more than a thousand,” Russell Synan said. “This is beautiful weather. It always brings a crowd.”

— Contact Bill Archer at barcher@bdtonline.com

        

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