Nearly a month before the West Virginia Strawberry Festival officially began, Buckhannon’s mayor promoted the event — and the city’s role in making it happen — in front of leaders from Randolph, Lewis and Upshur counties.
At the annual State of the Corridor gathering, Buckhannon Mayor Robbie Skinner highlighted the city’s largest-ever contribution to the Strawberry Festival — a $50,000 appropriation for the 84th annual event, which kicked off this week.
“A $50,000 contribution to the festival, the largest ever from the city,” Skinner said.
That represents a 10-fold increase over roughly the last decade. But it is also a comparatively small piece of what Buckhannon puts into the nine-day event each spring — a distinction city leaders and festival organizers have been emphasizing as the festival’s price tag, profile and attendance all reach new highs.
Council approved the $50,000 allocation in December, and that funding will be on full display when country music band Parmalee headlines a free concert on Main Street Saturday night. The band brings six No. 1 country hits to Buckhannon, including “Carolina,” Billboard’s most-played country song of 2022 “Take My Name” and its latest chart-topper, “Cowgirl.”
“A huge thank you to the City of Buckhannon for making this possible and allowing it to be completely free to the public,” the festival association said of the concert.
Festival organizers also named former WVU football standout and NFL fullback Owen Schmitt as grand marshal of the Grand Feature Parade. Schmitt, who earned the nickname “Runaway Beer Truck” as a Mountaineer and played for the Seahawks, Eagles and Raiders, is scheduled to stay after the parade to meet the public.
Beyond the headline bookings, Strawberry Festival Association President Shane Jenkins told Buckhannon City Council in April that the city’s increased support has allowed the festival to invest across the board. The Grand Feature Parade budget rose 16.7 percent. Overall stage entertainment spending — including the headliner and a new Friday night act on Main Street — climbed 14.3 percent. The festival’s family fun night at West Virginia Wesleyan College received a 50 percent boost. And for the first time, the festival added Tuesday night live entertainment at the Jawbone Park stage to give visitors a reason to stick around in the early days of the event.
At the December meeting where the allocation was approved, Skinner said the contribution is only part of what the city spends on the festival each year.
“We invest close to $100,000 a year — before we’ve even written the check to the Strawberry Festival — in manpower,” Skinner said. “The services we provide at no cost to the festival include waste services, sanitary services, water services, power services, street department overtime and labor, public safety, fire and police. It is all-hands-on-deck from this organization to help the event take place.”
Skinner has pushed for the elevated contribution since becoming mayor. A condition of the city’s increased support was that a member of council serve on the Strawberry Festival Association Board of Directors — a seat Skinner filled himself in 2022 as a volunteer.
“There’s not another single entity that is supporting the Strawberry Festival at the magnitude the City of Buckhannon is,” Skinner said.
The increased contribution also helps offset uncertainty at the state level. For years, the festival received an annual allotment from the former Department of Arts, Culture and History, but the state’s merger of arts funding into the Department of Tourism has left festival organizers unsure whether that pipeline will hold into the future.
The 84th festival is landing in Buckhannon with more momentum than any Jenkins has worked on.
“The energy behind the 84th West Virginia Strawberry Festival has reached an all-time high,” Jenkins said. “The momentum that we’re seeing across the board right now is unlike any we’ve seen. We feel energy just throughout the community.”
The Grand Feature Parade has more than 20 bands committed, a reversal from years past when organizers were chasing entries until the last moment. Market vendors are up from last year, and the festival maxed out its available food vendor slots.
Last year’s festival drew more than 50,000 attendees, filling downtown hotels, restaurants and shops through the first half of May. Those numbers — heads in beds, meals served, sales tax generated — are the return Skinner and Jenkins point to when they talk about the city’s investment.
“As long as I’m in charge, I can promise you that money will be well spent in the right places,” Jenkins told council. “I understand that’s an investment for you all, and I can guarantee we will invest it wisely in ways that will return to the city — our hotels, motels, all those types of things.”
Click here to see the full schedule of events for the 84th annnual West Virginia Strawberry Festival.
