Trending
ELKINS -- A downtown Elkins fall tradition is set to return this weekend, as materials for the 2023 Scarecrow Festival will be distributed Saturday at the Dann Building on Third Street.
The Scarecrow Festival was created as a fun way for the community to celebrate the arrival of autumn. Each year the straw figures are decorated by local businesses, groups and individuals and then line the city streets during the fall promotion.
Due to the removal of several parking meters in the heart of the city, there will only be 50 scarecrows handed out for this year's event. Those wishing to participate can pick up the necessary items to build a scarecrow from 1-4 p.m.
Our Town Inc. is once again spearheading the event and its representatives will be on hand to distribute all the materials.
"This year we are going to stay at the number of 50 scarecrows," Our Town volunteer Bobbi Trimboli told The Inter-Mountain Monday. "That's because we can only use the light poles from MonPower, who graciously are allowing us to do so.
"We don't have as many of the short poles as we used to have, so we are going to have to stick with 50 this year."
Trimboli said scarecrow materials being distributed include a wooden t-frame, a burlap bag and a small sign.
"Everyone will get the frame and a burlap bag to make the head," she said. "But what's important is on the back. There will be a number and you can put your business or name on the back of it. So when people want to come and pick them up, we know whose scarecrow belongs to who, and we will have all that recorded in the book."
There is no charge for the scarecrow materials, and anyone constructing one is free to make changes and be as creative as they wish to be.
"When they take their burlap bags or whatever they use for the head, we want to remind them to make sure the head is very well-attached," Trimboli said. "Sometimes, in particular the burlap heads, people don't pull them down all the way on the frame and then they start tilting over. So we are asking people to be really careful with that this year."
This will be the eighth year for the downtown event. Trimboli said over the years some extremely unique figures have been put up.
"People are amazingly creative with these scarecrows," she said. "We are always surprised with what comes back in. We get really excited on the day that we collect them, because we get to see them first hand and its fun to see what people come up with.
"They just aren't traditional scarecrows, they often reflect people's personalities, a business themselves, or a family themselves. We had a family put together the Beatles one year. The ideas are endless and beyond anything the committee could ever think of."
The scarecrows that are taken home need to be returned to the Dann Building on Sept. 8 from 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. They will be removed from the streets on Sept. 30. Those wising to keep their scarecrows will need to remove them before 9 a.m. on that date.
"If people want to keep their scarecrows , they need to be off the street by 9 a.m. on the Saturday morning we are taking them down," Trimboli said. "We take down everything that is left and it is immediately taken to the city dump so that it can be removed from the streets."
Trimboli said the scarecrows will primarily be set up on Third Street and Davis Avenue. Materials will not be reserved and must be picked up during the listed times.
For more information about the Scarecrow Festival, call 304-636-0415.