It's Cherry Time
Pit-spiting contest winner gets 32 feet of flight
Rob Zolman
Rob Zolman
Adults competed in the pie eating contest as well as kids.
Rob Zolman
Vendors display many handcrafted items.
Rob Zolman
George Murphy fills his lungs full of air before his cherry pit spit.
Rob Zolman
Kelsey Lyn plays music at the festival.
Rob Zolman
Festival goers enjoy a stroll in the sunshine.
Rob Zolman
Rob Zolman
Rob Zolman
Rob Zolman
Rob Zolman
Rob Zolman
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POLSON – Thousands packed the streets of downtown Polson this past weekend for the two-day family-friendly Flathead Cherry Festival. This annual Mission Valley festival celebrates the beginning of the Flathead Cherry harvest with all sorts of summertime family-friendly fun.
“Cherry sales have been great,” said Zac and Maddy Jones of Bigsky Orchards. “This has been the busiest weekend we have ever had during the festival.”
While the main cherry harvest hasn’t yet begun, Zac said, “We have about 10 trees of early variety cherries, so we have some cherries especially for the festival to sell. Typically, this festival is a week or two before our main crop actually gets going.”
While walking around and munching on locally grown cherries, festival-goers were able to browse more than 75 vendor booths and local shops peddling their art and wares along Main Street, including everything from sunglasses to cherry pies.
On Saturday, festival-goers enjoyed live music from Man and the Box. On Sunday, local vocal artist Kelsey Fowler performed popular hits and a few of her original songs.
It was slobber-flying action on Saturday afternoon in front of the Cove Deli and Pizza. The Cove hosted the crowd favorite cherry pit spitting and cherry pie-eating contest. More than 60 youth and adult pit “spitters” entered this year’s contest. Claiming top spit pit in the youth category was Jasper Wilde with a spit of 15 feet 2 inches. Jarred Bongee won the adult category with a pit launch of 32 feet 10 inches.
Last season’s adult last-place finisher, Tom Doak finished in the middle of the pack this year with a spit of more than nine feet after spending the last few days training by spitting rocks. “They were just little rocks,” said Doak with a chuck.
In the pie-eating contest, Teaghin Voorhees won the youth class in the cherry pie-eating contest. Voorhees also placed second in the pit-spitting contest. It was local dentist Gayle Siemers who chomped his way through his quarter slice of cherry pie to capture first place in the adult category of the cherry pie-eating contest.
