Page 15 - OzarksMagazineFeb17

Great music, food, and fun on Lake Harrison
By Donna BRaYMER
HARRISON, Ark. —“Tiny lobster- like crustaceans,” are the stars of the May festival on the banks of Crooked Creek and Lake Harrison. e diction- ary states the small freshwater decapod crustacean resembles a lobster.
But in Harrison, Ark., Crawdad Days means great music, food and lots of fun activities celebrating the Crooked Creek and Lake Harrison.
Visitors come from all over, includ- ing surrounding states, for their annual ll of eating fresh crawdads as well the performance of a nationally- known group giving a free concert.
is year the Morrison Brothers Band have agreed to present a concert Saturday evening.
e festival began 28 years ago to celebrate Crooked Creek which runs through the downtown area with walking trails, playgrounds and entertainment areas.
Dr. Charles Adair remembers, “I was the president of the Chamber of Commerce at that time, and we wanted a festival to take the place of Dogpatch Days since the theme park had closed down a er the death of the cartoon creator, Al Capps.”
e committee made up of Adair, Kay Maris and Debby Berry began thinking about the things the area had to o er.
“I told them how I fondly remem- bered as a youngster playing in Crooked Creek and catching craw- dads,” Adair said. “At that time, we www.OzarksMag.com
LEE DuNLAP
Arvest Bank facilitates getting the fresh crawdads from a Louisiana ven- dor. They average selling about 5,000 pounds of crawfish.
only had Crooked Creek going through downtown and it hadn’t been developed into Lake Harrison yet.”
e committee decided they would host activities that involved catching and eating crawdads.
e festival has grown every year and attracts thousands of local guests as well as visitors from neighboring states for a taste of the delicious “mud bugs.”
Arvest Bank facilitates getting the fresh crawdads from a Louisiana vendor. Ti any Curtis said, “We average selling about 5,000 pounds of craw sh per year.”
e fresh craw sh can be
Spring 2018 | Ozarks Magazine | 15