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FULTON – As temperatures dipped into the 50s on Saturday, Fulton celebrated fall with a new tradition to welcome the season.
The town’s second annual Fall Festival welcomed crowds, as vendors and food trucks clustered around the downtown area and live music was performed by acts including Dan Peart and Jen Craft Acoustic.
From bag toss games and pumpkin painting to inflatable slides and children’s train rides, Fulton welcomed the season with an event that had visitors coming from across the state. All of this comes on the heels of an initiative meant to improve the town’s spirit and sense of community.
“We have a crew of about five ladies, and it’s a lot of work organizing the festival,” said Karrie Kenney, one of the head organizers for the Fulton Festival. “It started back in the spring with trying to locate and approach all of our vendors you see down here and lining up all the food trucks. I saw them at different festivals in the area and tried to reach out and see if they were interested in coming to our event.”
The vendors at the festival come from all across Illinois. Boutique vendors such as Meinsma Apple Orchard, Marquis Soap, Tanglewild Farms and Wavy Jean Bows joined food vendors of every flavor. Fulton’s downtown shops equally took advantage of the street traffic to draw crowds of their own.
The Fall Festival is one of the many events meant to bring awareness to downtown shops.
“It’s actually a lot of fun because we’re a group of volunteers that have full-time jobs at other places that wanted to create some events for Fulton,” Kenney said. “I’d like to thank all the volunteers who made it work and all the vendors that came from far away and close by, and everybody coming down to support the event.”
Among the many visitors to Fulton Fall Fest, a pair of local celebrities stand out. Miss Clinton County 2023 Mariah Martinez and Miss Clinton County Teen 2023 Avery Bradley attended the event in their crowns. The pair were formally invited.
“We were invited here by Karrie, the director, and also the mayor to just come around and enjoy the residents of Fulton,” Martinez said.
“It’s been exciting to just walk around and take pictures of all the kiddos and see all the great things they have here today,” Bradley said.
The pair posed for photos with children and played games including ring toss. Both said they were called prom queens, the kids were interested in their crowns and their pumpkin-decorating skills got a little better. Martinez also was hopeful that potential candidates would check out the Miss Iowa or Miss Illinois scholarship programs.
Scholarship and charity work fell hand in hand at Fulton’s Fall Fest. At 2 p.m., festival workers hosted the Best Beard Competition. A panel of three barbers as judges walked along a row of contestants to select the person with the best facial hair. The prize on the line was a $500 check payable to the charity of the winner’s choice.
The Fulton Association for Community Enrichment, part of the Quad Cities Community Foundation, funds improvements in the city. By itself, FACE has given more than $1 million to the Fulton community over the past 15 years and funded the donation for the Best Beard Competition.
Two prizes of $500 were awarded to the first- and second-place winners, but the barbers awarded a special $60 prize. This unexpected windfall was awarded to an unexpected contestant: a young boy with a painted-on beard.
Joe McQuistion was selected as the first-place winner of the beard competition. He said he didn’t expect to win.
“I like the fact that the prize is money toward a charity,” McQuistion said. “I didn’t expect a prize, but the fact that I get to give the money to a charity is something that I like to do in my personal life anyway. In my free time, I sometimes raise money. I shave my head every couple of years and donate it to some kids, so giving back is kinda nice.”
McQuistion said he attended the festival last year. He stressed the importance of community events such as Fall Fest after the isolation everyone experienced because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“For a while there, like with Dutch Days and everything, it felt like the community was spreading apart, especially after the pandemic,” he said. “The Fulton Fun group came in last year, and they did an amazing job. The community felt really together, and you’re seeing it here again today.”