HARTSBURG, Mo. -- If the weather is nice, organizers of the annual Hartsburg Pumpkin Festival believe they could have a crowd of around 50,000 come out this weekend.
Events will take place Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day.
Donna Hilgedick, president of the Pumpkin Festival Committee, said several new vendors will be on hand along with pony rides, water balloon sling shots as well as corn and straw mazes set up for family fun.
"The money that is generated goes back into the community," she said. "With what we raised last year we were able to rebuild the Lions Club Park Pavilion, which had been damaged in a storm. We always do a scholarship to help a student at Ashland High School. We are a non-for-profit organization."
Hilgedick said after 23 years, most people know by now that cars park in a field so if it's wet, dress appropriately.
"You'll also sit in traffic for a while," she said. "Most people know that and get there early. Once people get here they find it's worth the wait. A lot of people know to take the back roads or gravel roads to get here."
There's no cost to get in or to park.
Once there, festival-goers will find lots of crafts and thousands of pumpkins to pick from.
"There are 14 of us on the committee putting this together," Hilgedick said. "We start meeting to plan things in February and come September we're meeting several times a week. There's a lot of volunteers who come in the week before and after to clean up and set up. They drive the shuttles and clean the trash and without them we couldn't do this."
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