The Mount Airy Fall Festival committee, which has been feuding with spring festival planners over exhibitors and vendors, has resigned.
Mayor Gerald R. Johnson reported at last night's Town Council meeting that he had received a letter of resignation from the committee.
The council asked Johnson to work out an arrangement that would allow the Fall Festival to continue. Town resident Clare Morton volunteered to become chairwoman of a fall festival if she receives help.
Meanwhile, Spring Fling chairwoman Irene Brown reported that the May 16 event has signed up 90 participants, including a petting zoo, sand art, llamas and a poison- and accident-prevention display.
The Spring Fling, a one-day festival in May in its third season, and the Fall Festival, a two-day event in October for 15 years, coexisted peacefully until last month.
Then the Fall Festival committee concluded that the town wasn't big enough for both events and sent letters to the Fall Festival's craftspeople, artisans and food vendors that stated, "This is to inform you that if you participate in the Spring Fling to be held in Mount Airy on Saturday, May 16, you will not be allowed to have a booth at the Fall Festival."
Fall Festival spokeswoman Connie German said that Spring Flingers had gone to the booths at the October event and "appropriated our vendors."
The Spring Fling representatives invited some fall-event vendors to Mount Airy's spring festival, Brown said last month, but she doesn't see it as a case of dueling festivals.
"Our festival is completely different," Brown said.
The town government manages finances for the Spring Fling and uses the profits for town beautification projects. The Fall Festival has managed its finances independently and has not shared its profits with the town government.
Pub Date: 4/07/98
