ELLERBE — Classic and modern tractors will roll down Main Street on Saturday for the annual Farmers Day Parade.
The event, now in its 23rd year, kicks off Farm-City Week — a time for city folk to thank farmers for their toil of the soil to provide food for the rest of the world.
Organizers at the USDA-Farm Service Agency say there are 45 entries for this year’s parade, but added more are likely to “just show up” in the morning, bumping the lineup to about 100.
The grand marshal for 2018 is Betty Wilson of Gold Leaf Farms in Derby. Following her will be Ellerbe Mayor Lee Berry and a caravan of classic tractors including those manufactured by John Deere, Massey Ferguson and Allis Chalmers.
Other entrants include the N.C. Forest Service with Smokey Bear, the Richmond Senior High School Marching Band, folks on horseback and riding lawn mowers and ATVs.
Kids standing on the sidewalks will have the opportunity to catch candy tossed from the tractors, trucks and floats as they make their way at 11 a.m. from the staging grounds at Ellerbe Middle School to the parade route’s end at Dixie Burger.
There will also be vendors downtown selling food and merchandise.
The Trip Rogers Band will be performing at 3 p.m. down the road at Ellerbe Springs Inn. Tickets to the show are $2.
Farm-City Week festivities continue at noon Monday with the annual appreciation luncheon at the Cooperative Extension office where the Family Farm of the Year will be awarded.
