Dogwood Festival to kick off as spring blooms

Still going after 60 years, Charlottesville’s Dogwood Festival kicks off today with a carnival chockfull of colorful rides perfumed by the corndog and cotton-candy stands set in a loop around McIntire Park’s lighted softball fields.

Those long associated with the annual event will say the festival has undergone the occasional change during the past several decades. But according to former festival board member Jim Carpenter, the core purpose remains the same — bringing Central Virginia residents together for more than two weeks of fun.

“The festival brings in a lot of good cheer,” said Carpenter, whose 59th birthday coincides with this year’s opening day. “You can bring all those people into one situation.”

The area bash will last until April 26, and features events such as a fashion show at Fashion Square mall, a parade, barbecues in the park and a rededication of McIntire Park’s Vietnam War Memorial.

Festival President Frieda Loose-Wagner, a Dogwood queen in 1989, said the famed dogwood trees will be on sale at the festival’s pork barbecue Tuesday in the park. The trees first went on sale late last month and were priced from $20 to $35.

“We ordered more trees this year because we always sell out,” she said. “But then it rained on us.”

Yet even after all these years, the Dogwood Festival is not stagnant. Loose-Wagner said it is unlikely that it will remain in its longtime spot after this year.

“We are searching for a new home, because we don’t have anywhere to go,” she said.

As McIntire Park gets an overhaul from a planned YMCA and as the master plan for the park’s western side is implemented, Loose-Wagner said, the festival’s board does not think the event can stay in the park because it is unclear when the work will be complete.

City officials, however, say that the approved master plan for McIntire Park’s western end still denotes locations for the Dogwood Festival. But officials said it would be premature to make decisions on the improvements called for in the master plan or to comment on the future of the carnival until more is known about the plan’s implementation.

Last year, city parks and recreation officials said the festival would have to move from its space north of the softball fields to an eventually expanded parking lot.

Even if the festival’s area was not disrupted, Loose-Wagner said the construction of the new YMCA would make it difficult for the carnival and other events to stay. She estimated that Dogwood requires 3 to 4 acres.

The carnival, Loose-Wagner said, is highly lucrative and helps keep the festival going from year to year, along with donors and sponsors. With the installation of a new T-ball field at McIntire, the number of rides is already down by three for this year.

“That’s a big impact for us,” she said, adding, “If it wasn’t for the carnival, we can’t have a festival.”

But Carpenter notes that the big rides were not always there. He remembers when bingo games were held instead to give the festival some seed money.

“The festival has come a long way,” he said.

A full event listing and a journal from festival queen Ashlyn Jenkins, among other things, can be found at http://www.charlottesvilledogwoodfestival.org.

The photo caption was edited to correct the school.