The Old School Sorghum Festival will return Saturday after last year’s hiatus due to a hurricane, the second in recent years. However, Annie and John Matthews are bringing the popular event back with a bang, including new displays and some old mainstays.
The festival will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. this Saturday, Oct. 19, at McDaniel Crossroads, giving attendees a chance to experience a part of the past and the tradition of sorghum cooking. It will feature craft and food vendors, including barbecue sandwiches, hot dogs, funnel cakes, authentic Mexican food, and shaved ice.
Visitors can also go to the old country store or the old McDaniel School.
This year’s festival will feature a vintage wedding gown display inside the old school, and a collection of garden tractors outside on the grounds. Rope-making, shelling corn and the usual food and craft vendors will be available, as will the hit-and-miss engines, antique tractors and the popular train room and country store inside the old school.
“It’s a family affair and a labor of love,” said Annie Matthews, who touted the family-friend event, which has a little bit of something for everyone. “There’s the history that’s involved, but it’s also a way to see each other and the family atmosphere is just enjoyable.”
Hurricane Matthew put a halt to the annual Old School Sorghum Festival in 2016, when flood waters left John and Annie Matthew stranded and without power for multiple days. The same thing happened last year when Florence hit. Matthew took a part of the roof and Florence, even worse for the old school, caused more damage and flooding.
Annie said all has been rectified and she expects a great event Saturday. And, for the first time, the fun will continue on Sunday as the old school will be open from 1 to 5 p.m. so those not able to visit Saturday — or who want to come back — can see the gown display, train room and visit the country store.
“It’s all going to be open anyway, so this will give folks the chance to see it while it’s here,” said Annie.
Matthews and his wife have been hosting the annual Old School Sorghum Festival for the past two decades. Held the third Saturday of October at the old McDaniel School, the event is free and open to the public.
A tradition, the festival, organizers said, promises to be a wonderful opportunity to experience a part of the past. According to Matthews, he and his wife continue the tradition of sorghum cooking, because it’s almost a lost art.
“Not many people do this anymore,” John Matthews has acknowledged. “Cooking syrup has almost become a lost art.”
About 7 a.m. the Saturday of the festival, Matthews said he will begin cooking the sorghum. Beginning with about 45 gallons of juice, by lunch, Matthews is left with about five gallons of syrup, all made available to event patrons.
“There will be a rolling brown color,” Matthews has said, describing the process of cooking the grass. “The juice will be bubbling and cooking for the first few hours.”
This, Matthews exclaimed, is a process the public likes to see.
The entire process, Matthews said, will last until about 12:30 p.m. and that’s when the lines will form. As fast as the sweet syrup finishes, Matthews said people line up to get a taste. Once they taste the syrup, Matthews said it’s a taste quickly desired, which is good since the syrup will be for sale.
Sorghum syrup is a table syrup and often used in cooking at high-end restaurants in their sauces, cakes, cookies and meat bastes. Many people use the sorghum syrup in their barbecue sauce.
In years past, the event has brought as many as 2,000 people to the festival.
“Because admission is not charged, it’s tough for Annie and John Matthews to keep up with how many people come and go, but, as Annie has said, anyone can look out over the grounds around noon and it’s packed.
For the train lovers, the electric train display measuring 18 feet by 24 feet and featuring a miniature town, will again be on display.
At the festival there is an old country store open to the public, as well as the Old McDaniel School, which is like a museum. The store served the Mintz community in the early 1900s and was moved from its original location to the site of the Sorghum Festival in 2002. The store housed the Mintz Post Office from 1900-1939 and was located on the Wilmington Branch of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad.
“Our old country store is like going back to 1900 and seeing something you haven’t seen,” John Matthews has pointed out.
A popular event for children is the rope making machine. The antique machine, that is used to make rope, will be on display for the public, but Annie says it should draw the interest of the younger generation.
Some of that younger generation is expected to be on hand as about 25 9th grade students in Duplin and Sampson counties who have been studying STEM careers in their hometowns will set up an educational booth, where they will show off what they’ve learned about sorghum bio-diesel, wind power and solar power.
The students will be there as part of the I-40 E.A.S.T. Project, a grant-funded partnership between the University of North Carolina Wilmington and Clinton City, Sampson and Duplin County schools. It provides young teens with hands-on learning opportunities in engineering, agriculture, science and technology.
Last year, the students met monthly at local community colleges to learn about STEM topics relevant to their communities. One of the topics was alternative energy.
”The students learned how to make their own biodiesel,” stated Liz Smith, I-40 E.A.S.T. Project coordinator. “They also discovered that sorghum can be used the production of biofuels in two ways. The stalk and seed are used directly for biomass energy and their high sugar content allows them to be fermented to make ethanol. This year one of the goals of the grant project is for the kids to have opportunity to share their knowledge about what they learned.”
For more information about the Sorghum Festival or for directions, visit www.oldschoolsorghum.com.
