The Citrus Harvest Festival in Highland, the Cherry Festival in Beaumont and the Apple Blossom Festival in Oak Glen view 2022 as a fruitful year for their communities.
Although the growers industry has declined over the years, everyone’s love for home-grown fruit has thrived.
Highland is well-known for its history of citrus groves and the city held the 24th annual Citrus Harvest Festival this year to celebrate the orange.
There were historic demonstrations, vendors, a car show, musical entertainment and baking contests for children and adults.
The community has been responsive to the festival every year with attendees averaging around 6,000 people, said Assistant Community Development Director Kim Stater.
This was the festival’s first year back since 2019. In 2020, the festival was put on hold due to COVID-19.
According to Stater, the community welcomed back the festival with open arms.
Stater estimates the peak time for attendees is usually between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.
The festival runs from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Before 2019, the route was along Palm Avenue and Main Street. In 2019, all of Main Street was used, similar to 2022.
Organizing it after a two-year absence went well, said Stater. “It seemed like we hadn’t missed a beat,” she said.
The Cherry Festival in Beaumont will return June 2-5 at Stewart Park, Ninth and Orange, after a two year absence. The city is making structural changes to the park, but said it would wait until after the festival to complete the changes.
The entertainment pavilion alongside Maple and Ninth has been torn down and a professional portable stage will be in place for the four nights of entertainment, which includes singer JoDee Messina, a Village People tribute band and magician Lance Burton.
Most of this line-up was on contract for 2020’s festival, but COVID canceled the event.
The carnival area will be between Eighth and Ninth streets and Orange Street and Maple Avenue. The food vendors will be north of Ninth and Orange streets.
The Apple Blossom Festival will be held April 23-24 in Oak Glen.
It was started in the ‘70s by the Apple Growers Association and in the later ‘80s Shelli Riley started the Apple Blossom Competition. Girls between the ages of 13-18 would compete in a series of contests, which consisted of pie baking, tractor driving, speech making, fashion and cider pressing.
Three winners were selected, one from the junior division, (13-15) and two from the senior division, (16-18). The winner was named Apple Blossom Queen and asked to attend any parades or events that Oak Glen hosted.
In later years, the Apple Blossom competition died off, but the festival remained. It was about eight years ago that Rebekah Riley rekindled the competition, said her sister, Grace Riley.
Grace and Rebekah are the daughters of Shelli Riley.
The current Apple Blossom Queen is Bella Soto, elected 2019, who will remain as Apple Blossom Queen this year because of lack of interest in the competition.
During the Apple Blossom festival, vendors from all over California come and set up their places at Los Rios Rancho lawn and Oak Tree Mountain parking lot.
For information on the Cherry Festival, call (951) 572-3197.
For information on the Apple Blossom Festival, call Los Rios Rancho at (909 797-1005.
