HAHIRA — Visitors of all ages flitted about Hahira like busy bees Saturday during the 27th Annual Hahira Honey Bee Festival.
Arts and crafts and food vendors, cloggers, a dog show and parade provided endless entertainment on the last day of the week-long festivities.
The parade, which started at noon, featured the Lowndes High School Georgia Bridgemen and Harley Langdale Jr. as grand marshall.
Judy Wise traveled all the way from Jacksonville, Fla., to Hahira see her husband, a Shriner, make an appearance in the parade. She said they have been coming to Hahira for eight years and love the friendly community and welcoming atmosphere of the town.
Pam Bellant, Melissa Chaney and Toja Bellant said that for them the big draw for this year’s festival — and all the ones they have attended previously — is the Georgia Bridgemen.
With Georgia Bridgemen as family, the trio said they can’t pass up any opportunity to see them play.
But there are other aspects of the festival that drew Bellant in, she said.
“The food, the food, the food. You have to have a funnel cake,” Bellant said.
Vendors sold funnel cakes and
lemonade, along with hand-made knickknacks for the home and office.
Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office deputy Robert Jenkins sold his “curled” canes.
While the wood itself is created by nature, it takes Jenkins weeks to sand and mold the staff into the perfect cane, he said.
Jenkins has been whittling wood since he was 8 years old and has been making and selling canes for more than 30 years.
“It’s a relaxing hobby, and as I got older, I started fixing the canes up for people as gifts,” Jenkins said.
The misshapen canes are made in nature, when vines curl around the wood. As both continue to grow, the vine naturally shapes curls and swirls into the wood.
Jenkins said he likes looking for the wood almost as much working with it.
In the early 1980s the honeybee was deemed the honoree of Hahira by Mamie Sorrell and Adeline Landrum in honor of Hahira once being known as the Queen Bee Capital of the World.
