The Poplarville Blueberry Jubilee - (4.5 stars)

Each year on the first Saturday in June, the city of Poplarville in Southwestern Mississippi hosts their annual Poplarville Blueberry Jubilee. Poplarville prides itself on its claim as the "Blueberry Capital of Mississippi," and the festival certainly pays tribute to that fact.

More than 200 arts and crafts vendors set up shop on the road normally known as Julia Street - a street which is renamed for only one day a year as "Blueberry Avenue" as the city celebrates its prized fruit.

The day starts off at 7:30 in the morning with a 1-mile fun race for the kids, followed by a 5k for the adults at 8:00. And after that? It's all fun and games - and crafts and blueberries and storytelling...






Visitors come from miles around to sample the wares and see what all the Jubilee has to offer. All day long there's entertainment on the main stage, vendors, great food, and even blueberry lemonade - which I encountered for the first time and became an immediate fan. Needless to say, I brought plenty of blueberries back home to make my own.

Perhaps one of the most entertaining events at the Jubilee was the Baby Crawl. Parents lined up off-track to place their bets and give their children peptalks. I lost $5 on a girl in a red dress when she decided right then would be a great time to learn to walk. Instant disqualification. The parents were heartbroken, sobbing well into the afternoon.

Except that none of that happened, save for the race itself - which was indeed exciting and fun. While there was no betting or sobbing parents, there was plenty of encouragement, and I think I even saw one dad doping his kid with a little kick of Coca Cola.

In the afternoon, I made my way down to the courthouse and took a wagon ride to the Thad Cochran Southern Horticultural Laboratory, where scientists research the viability of different strains of blueberries under different environmental conditions in addition to researching different ornamental plants.

The Jubilee had plenty of activities for kids, and the Blueberries alone made it worth the trip. It was a worthy celebration of the humble fruit that packs a lot of vitamins and antioxidants into a small size. It drew blueberry farmers from across the south, and the vendors were quite happy to have samples on hand.

I give the entire event 4.5 out of 5 stars. I would recommend making the trip to catch the next festival. The only reason I deducted half a star was due to the lack of lodging in Poplarville. While several top-notch Bed and Breakfasts call the city home (see my post on The Blueberry Inn here), the nearest hotels were more than 20 miles away in Wiggins.