Second Smithville Harvest Festival brings community together
The second annual Smithville harvest festival hosted 49 vendors and reminded the community what can happen when they come together.
SMITHVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – “We have a lot of events, but this is our biggest one,” said Kim Johnson, Smithville town clerk and events committee member.
Tractors rumbling by, kids having fun, vendors selling their goods, and local musicians playing live music were just some of what was found at the second annual Smithville Harvest Festival.
One vendor, Carolyn Moss of Country Ridge Bakery, said the event was good for anyone looking to promote their small business.
“People who are retired or don’t really have a regular job or just need extra income can come out here and set up a booth, you know, and sell their goods and get their name out there,” Moss said.
Another vendor, Betty Kennedy of J and K Creations, described the novelty of the event.
“This is the second year they’ve had it and they’ve never had anything like that here,” Kennedy said. “I think it, You know, helps the local businesses and bring more people in.”
Small towns like Smithville give people a feeling of homey togetherness that is unmatched by larger cities.
Moss described what small towns mean to her.
“Like home, you know, small town,” Moss said. “Everybody knows everybody. My grandkids’ teachers are people I graduated with, and it’s a good feeling.”
One attendee, Bobbie Wilson, described how small towns made her feel.
“Makes you feel homey,” Wilson said. “I mean you know, like a place that could be together.”
That sense of community in Smithville is what helped the town build back after an EF-5 tornado killed 16 people who lived there, and decimated a large portion of the town in 2011.
Katie McCullar, Harvest Festival Queen, described what happened to her town when she was just three years old.
“It got my mom’s house,” McCullar said. “And then tore up our little town, and it tore up our school.”
Wilson described the scene.
“It was terrible,” Wilson said. “We came down through here, It looked like a disaster. It looked like a war zone down through here.”
Moss also shared what the damage was like.
“They’ve really built this town up,” Moss said. “I drove through here, and, I mean, there wasn’t nothing. It was just so shocking. They have done a great job rebuilding.”
Johnson said how her community is growing back stronger.
“Our community is growing stronger by the day,” Johnson said. “And it’s been 13 years, but we are coming back. It’s taking a long time. We’re fixing to get a grocery store. We’ve got a lot of good stuff. We got houses going up. It took 13 years, but this type of event brings everybody together and it’s just a great sense of community.”
McCullar said the comeback gave her hope.
“It really just gives me hope because we’ve got so many like different,” McCullar said. “Like hurricanes and stuff that are happening in different parts of our country, and the fact that our teeny, tiny little town can come back from something that was so big, that wiped out more than half of our town. It just like, reminds me that everybody else will be okay too.”
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that in the four days leading up to the outbreak, more than 200 tornados occurred in five southeastern states.
