Vidalia Onion Festival Marks 48th Anniversary
How the once obscure Vidalia Onion rose from humble beginnings to become one of the greatest agricultural success stories in Georgia's history is a remarkable journey; but the onion, as sweet and unique as it is, might not be the super star it is today had it not been for the vision and determination of the residents of the community for which it is named.
Thanks to area onion growers and marketers, civic organizations, the media, and government officials, the Vidalia Onion is today a household word. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to measure the impact this commodity has had on Vidalia’s growth and development—or, as the Vidalia Onion Committee notes on its website, the extent of the “economic ripple caused by one little onion.” What is certain is that the prosperity of Vidalia and its famous vegetable are forever entwined.
“I doubt you could go anywhere in the country where people don’t know about the Vidalia onion,” said Dustin Booth, a former chairman of the Vidalia Onion Festival Committee. “Who would have ever thought how large our little festival would become? We are a true regional event that many people place on their calendars each and every year. Our concert series has continued to grow over the years, and our air show events are like no other!”
Every year, the festival comes around like clockwork, except for 2020 when COVID-19 paused the tradition. By 2021, things were up and running again, and better than ever. The festival founded to promote the famous onion is marking its 48th anniversary in 2025, but the event actually grew from a seed of an idea planted in 1974 when a small group of very determined ladies, backed by the Vidalia Lions Club, spearheaded an art festival in an old tobacco warehouse in Vidalia. Sprouting from a Seed Planted in the ‘70s Vidalia residents Joe and Ruth Brice were always very involved with their community. Joe served as president of the Vidalia Lions Club and Ruth held several offices, including president, in the Vidalia Woman’s Club. Their clubwork paths crossed more than once as they went about their civic duties—most notably in the early 1970s as Ruth was determined to garner support for a new community project.
“We were trying to figure out how to raise money for charities we wanted to support,” Mrs. Brice said of the Woman’s Club. She illustrated that in those days most women’s organizations were making money by cooking or selling pencils or greeting cards, and that was not very productive. “If you will give me two and a half days, I will show you how we can make money in just one weekend,” she said of her appeal to her fellow VWC members. Of course, the total effort ended up requiring a lot more than two and a half days.
What Mrs. Brice was proposing was a community- wide arts and crafts show. “Erne’ (Ernestine) Morris really deserves credit for starting this,” Mrs. Brice emphasized. She described Erne’ as an accomplished artist from Hazlehurst who married J.C. Morris, moved to Vidalia, and joined the VWC. “She had a lot of connections and the first couple of years she did the contacting and scheduling. We didn’t know a thing about it.”
Mrs. Brice recalled that in 1973 Erne’ sent letters to all of the men’s civic clubs in Vidalia asking them to cosponsor the show. “Some things we could do, but for some things we needed the men’s help,” she explained.
The letter suggested that the civic groups could add to their treasuries “and at the same time be an active part in stimulating an interest in the arts…With careful planning, advertising, timing and united in efforts we can make this a memorable experience for thousands of visitorshoppers who will want to come back to Vidalia again and again.” Despite hopes that the rest of the community would share their enthusiasm, the ladies received no response to their letter. Obviously, that was not the end of the story. Mrs. Brice had a plan.
“My husband was president of the Vidalia Lions Club in 1973 so I began to make some efforts.” One night the Lions had a board meeting at their home, and Mrs. Brice saw her opportunity. “I used a little pressure to put it mildly, but what I was putting forth was a good project for both clubs.” At first, the Lions Club put the ladies off, saying they would have to vote on the proposal; but eventually, the Lions saw the VWC was doing pretty well with its little project, Mrs. Brice affirmed.
“They did things we couldn’t and we did things they couldn’t. They didn’t want to fool with the paperwork, and we didn’t have the expertise to be carpenters,” Mrs. Brice remembered. For the first two or three years, the show was held in an old tobacco warehouse on Highway 280. “We swept the tobacco off the floors, and the Lions created the booths. Oh, it was hot! We opened all of the doors.” The show really took off, and about three or four years after its humble beginnings, John Ladson, then president of the Chamber of Commerce, approached the VWC and the Lions with the idea of the show becoming an anchor event for a continued from page
new concept, the Vidalia Onion Festival, Mrs. Brice recalled.
Mrs. Brice chaired the Arts and Crafts Show from 1976 to 2005. In the ensuing years, the event was moved to a local football field and later, the city offered a location near the airport. “The city was most kind to us. They cut down trees, mowed the underbrush and allowed us to form the different aisles. All of those years, the Lions Club members were the dearest people to work with. We couldn’t have done it without them,” Mrs. Brice commented.
“My delight was that the Arts and Crafts Show would give people in our area the ability to see and buy handmade arts and crafts,” Mrs. Brice recalled. “Artists and crafters from several states would come each year. We always tried to treat crafters like family,” she noted, adding that the clubs hosted a Sunday morning church service and brunch for the artisans. “We thought that since they were on the road, they didn’t have a chance to go to church, so we brought church to them.” From the beginning the artisans came from all over and in great numbers. The crafters numbered around 100 and many crafters returned year after year.
The show didn’t always rock along smoothly, Mrs. Brice recalled. “Sometimes we would assign a spot to a person and they didn’t like it. I trotted all over the place, looking at my little diagram, trying to please everybody,” she shared. “Every year was different. (Lions Club member) Howard Rogers was our electrical expert. We just couldn’t have done it without the Lions. We started out so uneducated, and we’d make mistakes and learn not do the same thing next year,” Mrs. Brice admitted.
“I tell you now, it got to be such a burden to me, and I was glad to find somebody to take over. It got to the point for every year from January to the end of April I felt like it was a disease, and it took me several months to get over it,” she confessed with a chuckle. She chaired the show for almost three decades.
After all these years, the Arts and Crafts Festival is still a big part of the annual Onion Festival, and up until 2021, was the VWC’s biggest fundraiser. The Woman’s Club disbanded and the project was assumed in total by The Vidalia Lions Club.
Spring Fest
According to an article in The Vidalia Advance, the first joint effort between the community as a whole, the VWC and Lions Club to promote the Vidalia Onion was known as Spring Fest.
A Vidalia Advance article published on May 12, 1977, announced plans to promote the Vidalia Onion at “Spring Fest III.” The name was a carryover from the previous two years of art festivals cosponsored by the VWC and the Vidalia Lions Club. Bill Ledford, editor and publisher of The Advance, wrote: (Headline: Arts Fest III):“The Vidalia Arts and Crafts Show and Vidalia onions are about as analogously complimentary of each other as two completely different entities could possibly be. Sound silly and contradictory? Not really, when you temporize that both Vidalia onions and the arts and crafts festival during recent years have enjoyed a tenor of success and popularity that most vegetables and about every weekend craft show envies…” The announcement went on to note that the Vidalia Onion was “billed as star of the cast” and would be “available in quality and quantity,” along with 100 booths of arts and crafts at the Georgia Warehouse on First Street.
By the next year, the event garnered even more local support and was officially dubbed Vidalia Onion Festival. The original arts and crafts show, still sponsored by the VWC and Lions Club, continued as Arts Fest IV.
Businessman Dent Temples recalled the early days of the arts and crafts festival. He was affiliated with the Lions Club. “I drove a big, yellow station wagon, and we would spend the night in that station wagon to guard the arts in the warehouse so they would not be stolen.”
Temples remembered that Erne’ Morris thought up the idea of an arts and festival, and it was “more art than crafts. We had some really high-class artists.” He recalled that the Lions Club members were “gophers and doers” and that Erne’ was the arranger. “She contacted all of the artists. We handled laying out the warehouse with booths and we cleaned up. The ladies handled the ticket taking.” He emphasized, “We (The Lions) were looking for a fundraiser at the time, but it was a joint venture.” Taste-Off in Walla Walla
By 1982, the community was fully behind the festival, and promotion of the famous onion. The May 13, 1982 edition The Advance announced that Vidalia had been invited to Walla Walla, Washington, for a friendly taste-off in July. Walla Walla boasted a similarly sweet onion that the Walla Walla folks thought might rival Vidalia’s.
The competition between the two communities had begun a year earlier when the Walla Walla Growers Association in cooperation with the Walla Walla Union Bulletin newspaper sponsored an onion tasting and cooking contest in which Walla Walla beat Vidalia “by mere tenths of a point,” according to The Advance. “Subsequent taste-offs and cook-offs in Savannah, Vidalia (which were victorious by the way), and other parts of the nation drew national attention,” the article continued.
The Walla Walla Growers Association, Frontier Savings and Loan, and the Union-Bulletin proposed pitting the two onions in a tasting competition before a “reputable panel of continued from page
judges” which would include the crowd at a baseball game and a more formal country club tasting including representatives from both communities.
The front page of The Vidalia Advance
on July 29, 1982, featured the headline: “Vidalians Attend Onion Joust.” Adjacent to the article was a photograph of Bill Ledford, his wife, Rose, Charlie Patterson, president of the Vidalia Chamber of Commerce, and Dick Walden, executive director of the Chamber as they loaded their car bound for the face-off. The accompanying story, written in a somewhat tongue in cheek style, read like the hype before a sports match: “Four staunch Vidalia Onion envoys left Vidalia today on a 300-mile jaunt that will take them into enemy territory— Walla Walla (Wash.) onion country and a severe bout between Georgia’s legendary Sweet Vidalia Onion of considerable fame and fortune and the Walla Walla contender.”
The first round was to be on July 31 as a major half-time event during a baseball game between the Walla Walla Padres and the Bend (Ore.) Phillies.
The Advance
article reported: “We are calling it our first,” said Nancy Wilson of the Walla Walla Chamber of Commerce. “The whole town will be involved with the two onions meeting head to head,” she continued. It sounded fierce, but in actuality the Vidalians were welcomed with open arms and treated like royalty at the friendly competition.
The Advance
article lamented: “Chances for a victory for the Vidalia onion on Walla Walla turf were calculated to be poor by Chamber of Commerce President Charlie Patterson as he prepared to leave this morning. ‘Yes, I think they have us at a disadvantage. But, we’ve been hoarding some super-biggies ever since we got the invitation to attend their onion fest.’ ” The Vidalia delegation took along 40 pounds of Vidalia selects.
The judging was close in three public balloting events. The last one was a private affair held at the Walla Walla Country Club. The club’s chef, who prepared a variety of dishes featuring onions from Walla Walla and Vidalia, was the only person who knew which dishes contained which onions. A panel of eight judges with representatives from each contending state sampled nine dishes. In the end, the Vidalia onion edged out the pride of Walla Walla!
The headlines in The Advance
on August 5, 1982, screamed: “Victory Sweeter in Walla Walla.” A subheadline crowed: “We Left ‘Em Crying in Walla Walla.”
Reporter Lisa James noted, “…when the scores were tabulated, it was the Washington variety that was ousted.” She noted that the Vidalia onion won in only three of the nine recipe tastings at the country club, but won big in the raw onion testing. “It just proves that you can’t tell them apart,” said Paul Hammock, emcee for the affair.
Yumion Takes a Bow July 1982 was a big month for the Vidalia Onion. It was featured during Vidalia Night at the Atlanta- Fulton County Stadium when the Atlanta Braves defeated the Pittsburg Pirates 6-4. The Braves regularly hosted “community night” at games when any one community bought 200 tickets and attended en mass. Joining the delegation from Vidalia was “Yumion,” mascot for the Vidalia Onion Festival. He was a relatively new character, having been created and named in 1980.
In a contest sponsored by the Vidalia Chamber of Commerce in association with the Vidalia Advance and Vidalia Broadcasting Company, a campaign was launched to name a character designed by local artist Wayne McMichaels. The mascot would serve as an ambassador at large.
The contest rules for naming the character specified: that the name contain “Vidalia Onion” or be identifiable with Vidalia Onion;” that the name must be representative of the agrarian life style and history of Toombs County; and the name must be recognizable and acceptable to the general public. The entries would be judged according to originality, and there was no age limit for participation. The winner would receive a $50 gift certificate from Belk-Matthews.
At the end of the contest, a former resident of Montgomery County then living in Daleville, Virginia, came up with a completely original suggestion: “Yumion.” The premise was that Vidalia Onions are “yummy.” The judges thought the name nailed the concept and fit the character. As the contest winner, Mrs. R. P. Thompson was happy to receive her gift certificate but regretted that she could not attend that year’s festival. She promised to visit in the future.
Bill Ledford espoused, in a March 13, 1980, piece announcing the mascot’s name: “He had everything! A gentle disposition, a worldwide reputation, is pleasing to the palate, as well as to the eye, has always been a giant among his peers, is a real money maker, smells better than any of his kind and is about the best public relations gimmick a city ever had. The Vidalia Onion had everything—except a name.”
Since 1980, Yumion has been busy representing Vidalia and its famous onion whenever the opportunity arises. The onion head in over-alls is odd-looking but lovable and has conquered many hearts through the years. Children love Yumion and adults always take a second look. “Well-Oiled Machine”
Local businesswoman Marsha Temples served as vice-president of the Vidalia Onion Festival Committee in 1996 and as chairman in 1997.
“The festival is a wellestablished tradition, and it works like a well-oiled machine,” Mrs. Temples said of the countless volunteer hours that go into the annual event. Of course, the festival has grown and changed over the years. She commented, “We used to have bowling, tennis and golf tournaments associated with the festival. A lot of that has gone by the wayside.” She fondly remembered some of the first concerts and street dances. “The first street dance featured Maurice Williams & The Zodiacs. When we had the Swingin’ Medallions, we blocked off city streets and had people dancing in the streets and having a really good time.” Concerts are still a favorite at the festivals and have brought in some big names in the music business.
In the past, celebration of the Vidalia Onion inspired events which included a rodeo, film festival, cooking school sponsored by Piggy-Wiggly, a five-mile bike ride, Onion Square Dance, and more. “Most of these events were put on by the same civic groups that still do these today,” Mrs. Temples said. Competitions from beauty pageants to onion eating are still popular, but perhaps the biggest attraction during each festival is the air show, which has brought in phenomenal crowds.
