Apple Butter Fest finishes up today
By RACHEL LANE, rlane@newsandsentinel.comArticle Photos
BELPRE - Apple butter was only one of the many attractions Saturday at the 30th annual Apple Butter Stir-off in Belpre.
The festival continues today with European sports cars, vintage trucks, the Miss Apple of Your Eye pageant, gospel music, crafts, an antique tractor show, a kids area and apple butter. The festival has grown in the past year, said Patsy Wamsley, Belpre Lions Club festival co-chairwoman.
"We have more vendors than we've ever had in the past and we couldn't ask for better weather," she said Saturday.
Wamsley said this year's festival is in memory of Bob Stemple, a Lions member who died during the past year.
"He was a member for 40 years... He was in his 80s, but he was still very active," she said.
Co-chairwoman Willene Bacon said about 1,500 people are expected throughout the weekend. They expect about $3,000 to be raised to help the club purchase eyeglasses and hearing aids for community members.
"We open (the festival) to any community civic group that wants to come give out information or sell something as a fundraiser," Wamsley said, adding that Boy Scout troops, the Belpre Senior Center and the Belpre Women's Club are among the organizations with displays at the festival.
"We do this as a community service project," said Tom Webster, apple butter chairman for Pioneer Presbyterian Church.
The church and Belpre Boy Scout Troop 91 have been making the apple butter for about 15 years.
"It's not an apple butter stir-off unless someone's making the apple butter," he said.
The fundraiser will make about $3,000 for the two organizations to split, Webster said.
"The Boy Scouts make the apple sauce and we use the apple sauce to make the apple butter," he said.
Following tradition, several 50-cent pieces are put in the bottom of the kettle to keep the apple butter from sticking because the wooden paddles used to stir the apple butter will scrap the bottom. Apple sauce is added then cooked until it boils. Cinnamon and about 45 pounds of sugar are added to the kettle, Webster said.
"We cook it until its thick enough and tastes right," he said.
Shelly Lemon, of Parkersburg, said she usually tries to attend the festival with her grandchildren.
"I love the apple butter and they like to watch the people stirring it," she said.
The children rode around Belpre in barrels pulled by a lawn mower and loved it, Lemon said.
"It was the first time they've been on that ride, the first time I've seen that ride," she said. "The weather's great, the music's good and we had fun. Overall, I couldn't ask for a better day."
Wamsley said members of several area Lions Clubs helped with the event.
