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Volunteers step up to run this year's Apple Festival

Big crowds could be on hand this year as the N.C. Apple Festival celebrates a big crop and post-pandemic restrictions. Crowd from a Sunday in 2015 is shown in Lightning file photo.

By Bill Moss, Published: August 30, 2022

Three days before the opening of the 76th annual North Carolina Apple Festival, the people who have made the celebration happen were running on adrenalin.

“So far so good,” said board member Paula Roberts, who was tapped to run the festival’s social media outreach. “It’s all been going really, really well.”
In any other year, that would seem to be the expectation for an event that’s been staged for 75 years. But this year, after executive director David Nicholson resigned in June, the volunteers who lead Western North Carolina’s biggest festival have had to do more than plan, assist and cheerlead. Instead of hiring a fulltime interim director, they plunged into the job and carried on. Even when this year’s president, Larry Phillips, resigned amid the turmoil early on, the veteran volunteers persevered.
“I left. I quit,” Phillips said. “I’d rather not” say why. “Right now I don’t wanna get stirred up in it. … Maybe after the festival I can talk about it but I don’t wanna do anything before the festival” that would hurt vendors, apple stands and parking lot fundraisers.
If any anxiety lingers over festival details, there’s none about this year’s apple crop. It’s one of the best in years. Growers are nervously joking that only a hurricane that blows the apples off the trees could ruin this year’s crop. To which, an Apple Festival board member cracked, “You mean other than the one we’ve been faced with all year along?”

Volunteers step up

Roberts said board members and the city and county have all worked well together.
“The executive board has really stepped up and Mark Shepherd has really stepped up — him and Geraldine Lamb and Colby Creasman Buchanan,” both apple growers and past festival presidents. “They brought (City Manager) John Connet and Johnny Shepherd back into the fold as far as running the festival.”
Shepherd’s volunteer work at the festival goes back to when the street fair was added and he’s also spent years managing the King Apple Parade. He downplayed his leadership role this year.
“We just came on because I’ve been around so long,” he said. “They did it all, not me. John Connet and I came on to be there to help. We couldn’t do it without the city. We’ve just been making sure all the T’s are crossed and the I’s are dotted really. We’re excited about the festival.”

City, county do ‘the real heavy lifting’

Like his dad, Mark Shepherd praised the city, county and first responder community for their essential roles.
“We’ve always had a really active board of directors that was able to take the load and we have an executive board that has worked hard and a bunch of committee chairs,” he said. “The real heavy lifting for the festival is the city and the county, especially the city. I’m sitting down right now with all the volunteer fire department assistant chiefs.”
A trauma surgery medic at Mission’s ER in Asheville — “If you see me you’re pretty hurt” — Shepherd had just gotten off a 24-hour shift Tuesday morning when he plunged back into the nearly fulltime volunteer work to make sure everyone has fun.
“The biggest thing is how important relations are, especially with the city and county,” he said. “It’s really all the city employees — public works, EMS, Rescue Squad, city fire and police department and John Connet.”
Shepherd said other longtime board members doing the heavy lifting over the past weeks include Lamb and Buchanan, the apple growers, and Renee Elrod and Josh English, both bankers. Although he implied at first that without them and the local government employees this year’s event could have been called off, he then amended that.
“That was never a conversation and never a possibility,” he said. “This is all about the apple growers and apple production in Henderson County.”