Olde Tyme Apple Festival Offers Down-Home A-Peel
at Central Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks

LAKE OF THE OZARKS, MO. -- Fall means apple harvest season and that means it's time for the Olde Tyme Apple Festival at Central Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks. The 26th annual edition of the popular festival is set for Saturday,
Oct. 1, in Versailles.

Voted "Best Festival" in the 2004 Rural Missouri Readers Choice Awards, a poll of the publication's 450,000-plus readers, this year's Olde Tyme Apple Festival is expected to attract about 30,000 visitors. The event offers a full day of family fun, entertainment and food -- including 40 food booths offering goodies from blooming onions to bratwurst, kettle corn to corn on the cob, Cattlemen's burgers to a pancake breakfast and more. "We have just about every variety of food you can imagine at a festival or fair, all right here," says Jay Fisher, festival publicity chairman, former president of the Versailles Area Chamber of Commerce and owner of KTKS Radio.

And of course there will be apples, in the form of an apple pie contest and auction, the crowning of the Apple Festival King and Queen, and the selection of the 2005 Baby Dumplin', Apple Dumplin' and Apple Darlin'.

The free festival also will feature nearly 400 craft booths around the Versailles town square starting at 9:00 a.m., plus a special Fun Zone for kids on North Monroe Street. The annual parade, always a festival highlight, will begin at 10:00 a.m. at Hwy. 52. "It takes a good hour and a half," Fisher says, for the parade to wind its way from Hwy. 52 through downtown Versailles. Four music stages will feature gospel, country, country rock and more starting at 12:00 noon.

In keeping with the festival's theme, "Let The Good Times Roll," a car cruise and sock hop will be held Friday evening at the Sonic Drive-In on Hwy. 5 South. On Saturday, visitors will be able to check out a wide array of vintage and classic cars at the City Park. There's also a show of old tractors and another of motorcycles.

Back by popular demand, the Olde Tyme Fiddler's Contest will start at 2:00 p.m. at the Royal Theatre. "We had standing room only last year," Fisher says. "Some of the country's top fiddle players are from this area. There's no
shortage of good fiddle players here!"

Other festival events will include a two-mile walk, a two-mile Fun Run and a 10K Run; a carnival at the Morgan County Fairgrounds; free tours of the Morgan County Historical Society Museum; several performances of "Joseph and the
Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat" at the Royal Theatre; and the festival finale, a demolition derby at 7:00 p.m. at the fairgrounds.

"Most of the festival activities are set around the town square which makes it easy for visitors to take in a lot of things," Fisher says. "They enjoy seeing our great variety of booths and activities." For $1, festival-goers can ride trams (on loan from the Missouri State Fair) from the parking lots to event sites.

To find out more about the Olde Tyme Apple Festival, contact the Versailles Area Chamber of Commerce at 573-378-4401. Or, for complete information on festivals, lodging, dining, attractions, shopping and more throughout the Lake
area, contact the Lake of the Ozarks Convention and Visitor Bureau at 800-FUN-LAKE or www.funlake.com.

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