The 46th Annual Bull Thistle Festival will delight Fayette residents and others Saturday as they celebrate a thorny, flowering weed. The fun will be at Normal Grove Park on N. Eagle Street from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
“Our festival has something for everyone,” said Brittany Theis, Chair of the Bull Thistle Festival Committee. “We have a parade, bull thistle courts, food, crafts, games for kids, bounce houses, pedal tractors, music by Heidi Paxton and Renegade Lemonade, sand volleyball, co-Ed softball, fireworks at dusk.”
The day starts before 11 am with a breakfast in the church of Our Lady of Mercy from 8 to 10 am.
The parade will begin at 11 a.m., traveling from south to north along Fayette Street. Citizens of the Year Rodney and Robyn Bingman and Genna Biddix will be in the parade and then recognized at the 1pm announcements in the park.
Everleigh Miller is this year’s princess, while Dalton Martin is the prince. Mike and Charity Slyker have been named 2022 King and Queen.
The festival will feature music most of the day, starting with Renegade Lemonade from 12-4pm Heidi Paxton will perform from 1:30-1:30pm and 2:30-3pm.
As part of the new Party in the Park from 6 to 10 p.m., there will be a beer tent and Back At It will perform.
Park activities will include bull thistle courts, children’s carnival games, craft merchants and vendors, pedal tractor pulls, a bounce house and train ride. The ox thistle judging will begin at noon with the results announced at 1 p.m., along with the float judging results.
There will also be several food options for attendees to fill their bellies. Options will include Port-A-Pit Chicken, Pence’s, B&E Lemonade, Garry’s Kettle Corn, FUMY shakes, Aqua Ice and burgers and pulled pork.
The day will end with a bang with a fireworks display from the local school grounds in Fayette set off at dusk.
Last year’s exhibitor articles said the Bull Thistle Arts Festival grew out of a challenge given in 1977 to James Marlatt and Herb Woodard, editor of the former Fayette Review, to create a community festival. He said that since the two shared a decidedly quirky sense of humor, they came up with a festival to celebrate a weed that local farmers detest. Since then, the event has grown enough to host guests from as far away as Michigan and Indiana.
Bull thistle, a thorny flowering herb disliked by farmers, is celebrated with the tongue at the festival.
