(Copy and photo by Jack D. Ballard)
Cloudy skies and a cool breeze didn’t seem to be the best day for the Town of Alderson and the local “Main Street” organization to host the annual “Strawberry Festival” on the Memorial Bridge and other special attractions, including all-day musical and family shows in the Alumni Park. As the vendors set up their tables, the musicians began their performances, the crowds began to arrive, first estimated in the 100’s, then to the later estimated more than a 1,000, all crowding the “Bridge” and the surrounding Greenbrier and Monroe County attractions, so much that it was overheard, from a local pastor, “When I see a crowd like that, it just wants me to take up a collection for the foreign ministries.”
