By JEFFERSON WEAVER
Staff Writer

Despite a cool breeze, Saturday’s Pecan Harvest Festival drew hundreds to downtown Whiteville for a day of fun and food.

Overcast skies cleared away just in time for the opening ceremonies at Vineland Station, where Bill Thompson of Hallsboro performed the National Anthem and introduced area dignitaries, festival queens and special visitors.

Celia Rivenbark, the Wilmington author and columnist, was this year’s Festival queen – and she enjoyed the experience.

“I could get used to this,” Rivenbark said, noting that “just about anything I mentioned suddenly appeared.

“You’ve heard the expression ‘feeling the love,’” Rivenbark told the crowd. “Ever since about 9 o’clock Friday morning, I’ve been feeling the love in Whiteville. Thank you!”

Other special guests included Miss North Carolina Jessica Jacobs, who told the crowd that she had learned something “very important” at the festival.

“All my life I said ‘Pecan’ wrong,” she said. “It’s a mistake I’ll never make again.”

As the Coastline Band kicked it into high gear on the stage, visitors wandered past stalls and booths offering everything from custom clothing decoration to walking sticks from the Green Swamp and the Waccamaw River.

Antique and classic cars lined one whole block of Madison Street, and crowds seemed to gather the most around a first-year production Corvette from Myrtle Beach and a bright red Chevrolet Chevelle from 1968.

At the N.C. Museum of Forestry, children and parents reacted in a variety of ways to the veritable menagerie of animals and plants on display. The museum hosted its annual Wildlife Encounters event as part of the festival, and representatives from more than a dozen outdoors and conservation groups handed out information and let children get up close and personal with animals ranging from honeybees to snakes, rabbits, hawks and an alligator.

Andy Wood of the Audubon Society answered questions in the upstairs lobby of the museum, and had a word of advice for almost every child who visited the display.

“Go outside and learn about this stuff,” he said repeatedly. “Get outside and enjoy the outdoors. That’s the best way to learn.”

At the Reuben Brown House, Tim Boyd of Moore’s Creek Battlefield was one of a dozen or so re-enactors demonstrating life in colonial times. Heritage Day was added to the Pecan Harvest Festival several years ago as a way to showcase the Brown House and educate local residents about the colonial heritage of Columbus County.

Boyd, a park ranger who recently learned to blacksmith, pumped air through his forge while heating and hammering iron into everyday household items.

Nearby, ladies of the N.C. Highland Regiment distaff demonstrated domestic arts while their husbands described military life during the Revolutionary War.

Butch Adams, Albert Shaw and Winston Tatum, all members of the Bladen Colonial Militia, demonstrated the use of colonial woodworking tools while a few yards away, members of a recreated Hessian military unit told visitors about the life and harsh discipline of German troops fighting for England during the Revolution.

Actual visitor counts were not available at press time, but organizers estimated several thousand people attended Saturday’s parade and festival.