CLAREMORE - Kay County residents Dennis and Jill Heath have attended the Bluegrass and Chili Festival for 23 years - starting when it was in Tulsa.
"I just love bluegrass," Dennis Heath said. "It's a very, very uplifting type of music. You can sit here a minute, and then you start tapping your foot."
He and his wife camped in lawn chairs under an umbrella Saturday for the final day of festivities on the grounds of the Claremore Expo, just as they have done for two decades.
Their tradition: spend several nights at a local hotel, eat chili and kick back to the sound of banjos and fiddles.
The festival, which just finished its 34th year, was expected to draw at least 25,000 visitors in its three-day span - many from out of the area, Claremore Chamber of Commerce President Dell Davis said.
It typically brings bluegrass and chili enthusiasts from 10-12 states and, occasionally, other countries, she said.
One couple from Germany typically attends every other year, she said.
"It's a great PR opportunity for any community to have all these visitors come in," Davis said. "All our hotels are full. We've had to send the overflow to other communities."
This year's festivities featured about 50 performing groups, chili and salsa cook-offs with about 45 competitors, a car show, activities for children and an antique tractor pull, Davis said.
And with good weather, attendance was expected to be as strong as ever, she said.
"It's just a tad warm today, but there's a good breeze," she said Saturday afternoon, when temperatures peaked in the high 90s. "There's lots of people out here - lots of families having a good time."
This year marked the festival's 14th in Claremore, which has hosted the event since its move from Tulsa after 20 years.
Chili cooks Donna Grabow and Nancy Phelps said it has become a part of Claremore's "small-town America" culture, something plenty of out-of-towners seem to appreciate.
Grabow and Phelps have won the cook-off seven times in the last decade with fellow workers from Safenet Services, which runs domestic abuse shelters in Claremore and Pryor.
"What I've really been impressed with is there's just a few who come in and say they're from Claremore," Phelps said. "They're from all around northeast Oklahoma."
Tony Loretti, a Tulsa resident who recently retired from a computer circuit board manufacturer, has cooked chili with a group of friends during the festival for more than 30 years.
The event has given them a chance to experiment with "a world of different powders and spices," he said - and to share the results with hundreds of people.
"It's been great," he said. "We like to cook chili and we like competition, and it's nice for someone to give us the chance to compete."
Zack Stoycoff 918-581-8486
zack.stoycoff@tulsaworld.com
Original Print Headline: Festival spices up city
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