By Liz Beavers
lbeavers@newstribune.info
Tribune Managing Editor
KEYSER – The sap may not be flowing very well due to the cold and snowy weather in February and early March, but the 10th annual Potomac Highlands Maple Festival will go on as planned.
Scheduled for Saturday, March 20, and Sunday, March 21, the festival is designed to celebrate the historic tradition of making maple syrup in the Potomac Highlands area.
According to festival organizer and Indian Water Maple Co. owner Ed Hartman, the warmer days and cold nights needed to get the sap flowing in the sugar maple trees just haven’t materialized yet this year.
“We aren’t going to be able to have the maple sugar camps open this year,” he told the News Tribune Monday. “But the festival is going on as normal.”
Scheduled for the second year in a row at Keyser High School, the festival will feature vendors, music, and plenty of food.
“We’ve got somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 different vendors right now,” Hartman said, noting that most of the crafters will be set up inside the high school.
Outside, the Wills Mountain Renegades, a group of traditional re-enactors, will set up camp and Hartman’s famous chicken barbecue will be sending temping smells into the crisp March air.
“The chicken barbecue
will benefit the KHS girls’ track team, and there will be cornbread and soup beans which will benefit the wresting team,” he said.
The chicken barbecue is scheduled to get underway at 10 a.m. and continue through the weekend “until we run out.”
The soup bean dinner is scheduled for 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.
Before that, however, festival-goers wishing to get a good start on the day may go to one of two old-fashioned buckwheat/pancake breakfasts being scheduled at 8 a.m. – one on Saturday only at the Laurel Dale Church on Route 93 and the other on Saturday and Sunday in the KHS cafeteria, featuring the Fountain Ruritan’s buckwheats and pancakes.
The annual 5K Maple Run, which will benefit Keyser High’s cross country team, will get underway at 9 a.m. (For further information, call 304-788-4230 X 43 or 304-788-1831.)
The Early Additions Street Rodders will have a car show from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, and Gerald Sites will have his tractors on display.
To help make up for not being able to offer tours of the maple sugar camps, Hartman said they will have a portable evaporator on site to demonstrate how the moisture is removed from the sap in the process of making maple syrup.
Festival-goers will also be treated to some toe-tappin’ music on Saturday, with performances by Lonesome Highway, New Creek Station, and Mountain Melodies from the West Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind in Romney.
Hours for the festival are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
Keyser, W.Va. —
