The sound of children laughing, the sight of people spitting seeds and the smell of freshly sliced watermelon filled the air Saturday at the 66th annual Newberry Watermelon Festival.
Roughly 6,000 people attended the festival, held at Oak View Middle School in Newberry for the first time.
Standing in a blue, Cinderella-style dress, 4-year-old Layla Parris, this year's Watermelon Junior Queen, posed for pictures with festival-goers all morning.
Excited about the large trophy she had won, Parris had one word for how she felt. "Awesome," she said.
This is her third year participating in the pageant.
Contests at the festival included seed spitting, watermelon rolling, watermelon eating, hog calling, best pie/cake and biggest melon.
Teen Queen Megan Morgan spit a watermelon seed 14 feet 2 inches - a new record.
Gainesville resident Hank Hobday, 59, won the best cake/pie contest with his Japanese fruit pie, which was filled with raisins, coconut and pecans.
This was Hobday's second time entering this pie into the contest, but he has participated in several other pie contests.
"I just like doing it," Hobday said.
Jenna Garrett, 19, from Branford, Fla. was crowned this year's Watermelon Queen, and she also won this year's hog calling contest.
She stood with several contestants lining the stage and gave her best hog calls ranging from "here piggy piggy" to the traditional "sooie!"
She participated in the pageant last year and won second runner-up.
Garrett, an agricultural communications major currently studying at Santa Fe College, also won second runner-up at this year's state watermelon pageant.
"She's not a pageant girl, she just loves the watermelon industry," Garrett's mother, Bobbie Jo Garrett, said.
According to organizers, the festival was started by the American Legion to help returning veterans begin promoting activities to help support their communities.
They adopted the watermelon as their logo because of the fruit's abundance in the region.
"Newberry used to be the watermelon capital," said Kindra McGehee, Auction Coordinator and festival Committee Member.
Lines for some of the famous locally grown Newberry melons formed all day, with free watermelon slices lying on tables just past the mechanical bull.
The festival used to be held at Canterbury Equestrian Showplace, but increasing costs and complaints from food vendors about the smell of horse manure forced organizers to move the event this year.
While the food and vendors are a big part of the festival, Tia Bonnell, festival president, said its main purpose is "community togetherness."
"It's clean fun, and there's something for everybody," she said.
This year's festival was dedicated to the memory of McGehee's mother, Joyce McKoy, who helped organize the festival for more than 40 years and passed away last spring.
A set of metal canisters painted like watermelons purchased months in advance by Joyce McKoy before she passed were auctioned and sold for $100, with proceeds going toward a festival-sponsored $1,200 scholarship offered to a local high school senior.
