Organizers gearing up for annual South Side Fall Festival

By Kirsten Stokes

On its 35th anniversary, the South Side Festival is bringing “The Fabulous ‘50s” to St. Joseph this week.

Volunteers will come together to welcome parades, homemade crafts and community members to Hyde Park, starting Sept. 20.

The event, which is expected to host more than 30,000 people over three days, requires a lot of planning. Festival chair Gary Pettis explained the process of making the T-shirt for this year’s festivities.

“We’re making souvenir shirts so people can buy them at the festival. We have two different versions, the 35th year version and then we’ll do a themed shirt for our parade and our royalty contest,” Pettis said.

While making shirts, Pettis recalls the first time he was introduced to the festival, hearing music as he worked outside of his home. Curiosity then led him to being a part of the South Side staple in more ways than one.

“I was painting my house and here comes a parade. It ended up at my house and I did some investigating and found out it was the South Side Fall Festival. We didn’t know anything about it at the time,” Pettis said.

As a welder at Gray Manufacturing, he and his wife sold metal shepherd hooks, address signs and birdhouses in the early 2000s. Pettis would later become chair of the festival in 2010.

“What I love about the festival is, it’s a reunion type atmosphere, you go every year, you’ll see people that you haven’t seen since last year’s festival,” he said.

While T-shirt making is a small part of the preparation for the festival, it’s one that many in the community can purchase and wear across their chest and feel South Side pride.

“You want to come to the festival because we will have over 100 booths with plenty of festival food you can’t buy anywhere else. We will also have two live stages of entertainment all day on Saturday as well as our firework show on Friday with plenty more.

Visit southsidefallfestival.org to learn more about the event.