KELSEYVILLE, Calif. — For three decades, the last weekend of September has been a time of celebration for Kelseyville's farming industry, in particular, its famed pears.

On Saturday, Sept. 28, downtown Kelseyville buzzed with excitement as over 180 vendors came together with tens of thousands of residents and visitors to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Kelseyville Pear Festival.

Food purveyors, local farmers, artists and community organizations filled up sides of the Main Street, with live band music blasting through the day.

Since its launch in 1993, the Kelseyville Pear Festival has grown into a cherished annual tradition for local residents and incoming tourists. It has endured through wildfires and economic challenges, with just one brief pause in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic.

Tracing back to its first launch in 1993, “We were not just celebrating the pear; we were celebrating our agricultural history of this big valley. It’s also about the Kelseyville community pride,” said Marilyn Holdenried, who chaired the pear festival for 23 years until 2015 when she retired.

“I always had a big white tent. We rented it and covered that whole parking lot, but it got too expensive to rent,” Holdenried said, recalling the old days holding the festival outside the Westamerica Bank. Now, she was delighted to see these bright colored umbrellas: “I think it’s charming and colorful.”

‘Small towns, big families’

“Probably my favorite part of the festival is still the parade,” Holdenried said of the event’s unique showcase of the pride in community and agriculture during a phone call with Lake County News.

“The children, the adults, the floats, the carts, the tractors …” Holdenried said in a delighted tone. “I probably love the children the most.”

But she couldn’t leave out her other favorite.

“I love the tractors being a farmer’s wife,” she said, laughing. “I always felt like those tractors belonged in the parade, and now especially with the women drivers, it’s just so fun.”

This year Toni and Phil Scully of Scully Packing Co., Lake County’s only remaining pear packing company, sat on an antique tractor in the parade as the appointed grand marshals for the first time.

They moved their young family to Lake County in 1974 and started the company 10 years after that.

Now, Scully Packing ships 40% of California’s Bartlett pears going into the fresh market, according to Toni Scully.

This year’s festival also was 7-year-old Adrian Rojas’ first time taking part in the parade together with his siblings Mila and Mira.

Their grandmother, Julie Tibbetts, a former Kelseyville resident, has been coming to the pear festival every year since 2004, even after she moved to Sonoma County in 2011, except for last year when the family had a death.

This year, Tibbetts was joined with her two daughters, a son-in-law and three grandchildren. For the day, they watched the parade and shopped with the local merchants.

“And now we’re gonna listen to some of the local talents that we’ve been hearing for years since they were kids,” Tibbetts said, sitting with the family under a big red umbrella at the Westamerica Bank parking lot.

What she loved the most about the festival is “the small town community,” Tibbetts said with a smile.

Alvaro Gonzalez with his family of five came out from their home on Second Street to join the festive crowd as early as 8:30 a.m.

They had breakfast at the fire department. “We do that every year,” Gonzalez said of the family tradition.

It’s hard for Gonzalez to pick a favorite part of the event: The kids were in the parade. The church sold really good tamales and the Lions club oysters and beer. “It’s really nice for the community.”

As the interview went on, Gonzalez was constantly stopped by longtime friends who went to Kelseyville High School with him decades back, all with their own families. “Small towns, big families!” they shouted and laughed.

Eat up the pies

At noon, the pear pie eating competition kicked off under the hottest sunlight of the day. Twelve contestants, each representing a nonprofit, were getting ready to compete for the shortest time to eat up a freshly-made pear pie.

Organizer Trista Fossa, a Realtor with NextHome who’s also substitute teaching at Kelseyville High, said she would donate $250 to the winning nonprofit.

After intense wrestling with the pies, Elijah Watkins of Kelseyville High School won the crown and the donation for his school’s Boosters Club.

Watkins’ strategy to win involved starving.

“I didn’t eat last night,” he disclosed to another contestant before the race started. And he flexed his biceps to the audience to show his strength and determination while his varsity football teammates cheered by the huge trailer donated by Lauenroth Trucking that served as a stage for the competition.

Use of hands was prohibited by the rules, so Watkins immediately pressed his face into the pie when the game started. Soon he stood up while he kept eating off the pie, as if that would speed up the process.

“I really don’t like cinnamon, so I almost threw up,” he told Lake County News after the competition. But the will to win prevented that from happening — “I looked around the trophy and I was like, I want that,” he said. “I got it.”

After all, he won the beautifully designed pear-shape trophy.

Fossa has known Watkins since he was little. “He's a super sweet kid,” Fossa said. “I told him this is a returning trophy. You have to bring it back next year.”

Will Watkins win again? “Hopefully. Stay tuned,” Fossa said and laughed. “It’s just a fun event to get people together and it’s a conversation starter for sure.”

Pears, more pears!

By 1:40 p.m. almost all official souvenirs specially designed for the 30th anniversary at the “Pearaphernalia” booth had been picked away. Aprons and women’s T-shirts were completely sold out; only four men’s T-shirts and a few caps were left, said Kathy Windrem, a volunteer at the booth.

Although Windrem had only volunteered for recent years, she had been a loyal attendee for decades as a Keylseville native. She wore a pair of pear-shaped earrings that sparkled under the sun.

“I’ve come every year and my earrings are from maybe 20 years ago,” Windrem said with a proud smile, showcasing the vintage earrings she bought at one of the old pear festivals.

Kelly Moe of Kelly’s Designs makes and sells her own art. This was her third year coming into the festival as a vendor with her craft in all forms from plushes, purses to earrings.

Moe started out four years ago at The Mercantile before the farmer’s market and then ventured out at some of the “bigger shows” such as the Blackberry Festival. “I try to stay local,” she said.

“I was disabled, and so I started making earrings just for myself, and then you know, it escalated,” Moe said and laughed, adding that she was expecting to come back next year again at the same spot.

Animal friends

Not only children and adults, but donkeys and horses also took their part. Steve Robinson walked along the street with his two miniature horses, Biscuits and Gravy, and was constantly stopped by visitors who wanted to pet the two and take photos.

Robinson said the two little horses were pulling a wagon with him and another four people on it for the parade. “It’s nothing for these guys; they can pull five times their weight,” said Robinson.

Whitney Braito of Whitney’s Ranch Care went a step further with a makeover of herself as Princess Fiona from the Shrek movies, wandering the streets with her best donkey friend who’s 23 years old and a horse friend who’s 25.

“Both of these guys have been rescued,” Braito said. “They both came to me needing dietary corrections and rubber hoof trimming.”

Braito said she was going to send them back and come out again, since she was going to remove the makeup and “be a human.”

“When the donkey goes, the costume goes,” Braito said.

“Oh well, did we dream of it lasting 30 years?” Holdenried repeated the question that was asked of her in the phone call as she recollected memories of starting the festival at the very beginning.

“Probably not,” she said with a joyful chuckle.

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