The Leesburg Fall Fest continues Saturday, Sept. 29 in the parking lot of the Leesburg firehouse at 200 South St., with a car show, gymnastics and an outdoor concert with the Southern Boys opening for Sean Poole and Hickory Lane.
Despite suffering a heart attack earlier this summer, Fall Fest organizer Angel Greenlee is still involved with the event, and told The Times-Gazette there is something for the entire family.
“We’ve got lots of music, food and vendors for the family to enjoy,” she said. “our open mic karaoke starts at noon, so if there are any local bands that want to come out and show us what they’ve got, we’ll give them a chance to maybe be the opening act next year.”
Greenlee said that Poole’s latest CD release will be available at the Fall Fest, and that he is raffling off an autographed Fender Squier guitar, with the winner to be announced Saturday night.
“It’s the first time for the Southern Boys at the fall fest,” she said, “and they’ll be opening for Sean Poole and Hickory Lane, and this will be his fifth year with us.”
Although Greenlee has been in the forefront of the Leesburg Fall Fest for the past few years, her health concerns have forced her to hand off more of the responsibility to incoming Leesburg Lions Club President Jay Newland. But that doesn’t dim her enthusiasm in promoting the annual Leesburg event.
“We’ll also have a car show that’ll be out front starting at noon on Saturday,” she said, “and we’ve got lots of vendors, like Mike’s Donuts, the Boy Scouts will have their popcorn and the fire department is having a fish fry, so we invite everyone to come out and have a good time.”
Kenneth Woleab is also with the Leesburg Lions Club and came to appreciate the hard work that women like Greenlee and Newland put into the event, when his own wife broke her arm this past year.
“I was taking care of the house and everything,” the retired lay minister said, “and I found out just how hard women like her worked during the day.”
Another of the women working hard to make the Leesburg Fall Fest a success is Cinnamon Dean, one of the vendors who is a portrait photographer from Hillsboro, but went to school in Leesburg.
“I did some portraits at the grand opening of Cheyenne’s Elite Gymnastics,” she said, “so I thought I’d come out here to the festival.”
The Highland County native just returned from living for a year in New York since her husband was a military policeman in the Army.
The Leesburg Fall Fest will open at 10 a.m. Saturday with a gymnastics show from 11:30 a.m. to noon, followed by karaoke from noon to 2 p.m., a car show from noon to 4 p.m., the Southern Boys at 4 p.m. and Sean Poole and Hickory Lane wrapping up this year’s festival with an outdoor concert from 7-100 p.m.
Reach Tim Colliver at 937-402-2571.
