Appalachian Bacon Nation Festival returning to downtown
COSHOCTON – Brad Fuller, his wife Cathy and a team of volunteers from the community are ready to once again celebrate all things bacon.
The Appalachian Bacon Nation Festival, which was first held in 2014, will be held again Saturday, Sept. 10 in the 300 block of Main Street.
“We were going to make it an annual event, but skipped 2015 because Cathy and I got married in August and there was no way to plan a wedding and the bacon festival,” Brad said. “We decided to skip a year, regrouped and got people in line for 2016 and will continue from here.”
The festival starts at 8 a.m. with registration for the Bacon & Legs 5K Race and then families can enjoy activities all day long including the final event of the day, a family movie night starting at 8 p.m. or dark in the artPARK.
Brad is excited to see many of the events from 2014 return, including the king and queen contest that will be held at 3 p.m.
“We will crown a king and queen who are seniors at one of our three county schools and in addition to getting a crown they each receive a $500 scholarship for their next level of education,” he said.
The 5K also should be once again successful.
“Our inaugural race had almost 80 people participate and that was really good,” Brad said. “The organizers of the race have told me that with the people who have already registered for this year and those who will the day of the race, we should have over 100 in this year’s race.”
A new event he’s looking forward to is a free family pancake breakfast with bacon put on at 8:30 a.m. by the Coshocton Fatherhood Initiative.
“Their primary goal is to serve families and they will be bringing them together through food and fellowship,” Brad said.
Families will enjoy the children’s play area that is being organized by the Family and Children First Council and other volunteers.
“They are taking the lead on this and there will be lots of good stuff going on,” Brad said. “There will be children’s games and different activities happening every hour. This event is designed for families. There will be no admission charged for the festival or the kids’ games. We want to provide an event families can come out to and enjoy together.”
Throughout the day there will be live music, contests, food and craft vendors, the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile to checkout and a beer garden in the artPARK, but Brad said that will be closed down before the family movie starts. Mike Cichon and John Larson who helped coordinate the creation of a giant BLT at the 2014 festival will have something similar at this year’s event.
“It won’t be another BLT, but it will be something fun,” Brad said.
Other bacon themed goodies will be available from the food vendors.
“We will have some local food vendors and some from out of town, but we requested they all have at least one bacon related item,” Brad said.
Helping sponsor the 2015 festival are: Kraft Heinz/Oscar Mayer, Central Ohio Technical College, the Coshocton Foundation, Wen Mar Farms, Ace Hardware, Bakers IGA, the City of Coshocton, Help Me Grow, Hilschire- Clarke Electric, Marilyn’s Natural Foods, Michael Taylor Insurance, PSI Industrial Solutions, Raymond James Financial Services, Three Rivers Therapy, and Vinyl Frontier.
“They mean everything to us,” Brad said about the sponsors. “We couldn’t do this festival without their financial support. Their generosity is why this is a free festival. We also partnered with Our Town Coshocton this year and they are helping us put this together and supporting us. In 2017 we are going to move the festival back one week to join Our Town. They will have their First Friday and then we will have the bacon festival on Saturday.”
Brad wanted to make sure he shared that the Ohio State football game will be playing in the artPARK so no one should have an excuse to miss this family friendly festival.
For more on the festival, visit www.appalachianbaconnation.com.
Appalachian Bacon Nation Festival Schedule
Saturday, Sept. 10 in the 300 block of downtown Coshocton
8 a.m. – 5K registration starts
9 a.m. – Bacon & Legs 5K Race begins
8:30 a.m. – Free family pancake breakfast provided by Coshocton Fatherhood Initiative
11 a.m. – Opening ceremony
11 a.m. to 2 p.m. – Music by Acoustic Edge
2 p.m. – Kid’s tractor pull
3 p.m. – King and queen contest
4 to 5 p.m. – Music by Goodbye Saga
5 p.m. – Bacon eating contest
6 to 8 p.m. – Music by Roscoe Transit Authority
8 p.m. or dark – Family movie night
All day: Food and craft vendors, children’s play area, Oscar Mayer Weinermobile, and beer garden
Category: Arts & Entertainment
