Living for the Strawberry Festival
Something was a little fruity at our office in Historic Downtown last week. The fragrance of Plant City’s blooming fields was brought in a delivery of newspaper bundles — not flats. And it’s because our 2015 Florida Strawberry Festival Guide has a juicy strawberry on the front that smells just as good as it looks. It’s scratch and sniff.
We thought the gimmick would be the exact kind of thing the Winter Strawberry Capital of the World would appreciate. And we sure appreciate being able to represent one of Plant City’s greatest traditions by becoming the main media partner, along with the Tampa Bay Times, for the first time in festival history.
This is the third year I’ll be covering the Florida Strawberry Festival. And I know for many of you, this is your 10th Strawberry Festival or 50th Strawberry Festival — dare I say 80th?
But I will tell you, as excited as Plant City gets about its annual event, the staff at the Plant City Times & Observer, myself included, does too.
There’s nothing like the anticipation that comes with covering the events leading up to the celebration — strawberry balls, pageant girls, queens, fashion shows.
And then comes the 11 days of organized chaos. It’s a whirlwind of magicians, steer and swine shows, rides, monkeys, shortcakes, fish prizes in plastic bags, strawberry paintings, racing pigs, big-name country stars and fried Oreos.
We are there for it all, front and center — making sure to capture the smiling faces, the mouths full of whipped cream and strawberries, the confident, young hands leading their livestock around the ring. They appear in print stories, countless photo galleries, social media posts and more.
This year, we’re bumping up the coverage.
The 2015 Florida Strawberry Festival Guide is 48-pages and has grown substantially since last year.
With a map, complete schedule, concert lineup, shortcake rundown, list of have-to-have trinkets and more, we know it will be a hit with all of the out-of-towners the festival and our great city attracts every year.
But we also designed it with Plant City in mind. From Q&As with well-known festival red coats and an extensive profile on our beloved 2015 Strawberry Queen Samantha Sun, to an ag profile on a local feed store and a personal welcome column from Festival Manager Paul Davis, we know Plant City will turn to our 2015 Florida Strawberry Festival Guide for all the information it can get during the festival.
Stop in at our office in Historic Downtown to read (and smell) the guide, or pick one up at the festival when you visit.
In addition to our guide, we will be uploading photo galleries and videos to our website everyday, active on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram, and still on the search for hometown stories, both festival-related and not, to fill our pages.
We encourage you to take your best shots of festival happenings and send them to us by emailing me at ajurgensen@plantcityobserver.com with the subject line: Strawberry Festival. Or you can hashtag your best shots on Instagram: #TheSweetBeat.
We know the Strawberry Festival is more than just an event to Plant City. With an 80-year history that grew out of a humble desire to appreciate a small-town way of life, family values and agricultural heritage, the festival has blossomed to become a Florida landmark, shared with hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world every year. We are happy that we get to share in the tradition and celebration, too.
Plant City lives for its Florida Strawberry Festival. And so do we.
Contact Amber Jurgensen at ajurgensen@plantcityobserver.com.