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Seventh bluegrass fest called city's best

By JOE BRADDY
Star Editor

Top performers and beautiful weather attracted thousands of visitors to Auburndale's City Park last weekend for the seventh annual Florida Bluegrass Championships.

Those associated with the three-day event - the official state championship for bluegrass bands - were calling it the biggest and best bluegrass festival ever held in Auburndale and one of the largest in the entire nation.

Jim Hammond, president of the sponsoring Auburndale Sertoma Club, told Auburndale city commissioners Monday night that at the official crowd estimate for this year's show was 21,000 and that peak attendance was 7,800. The figures easily surpassed the number of people believed to have seen the 1982 festival.

"We were told by a couple of people who travel around to all these shows that our show is now the largest in the south and the second largest in the country." said Wally Quick, chairman of board of the Sertoma Club. "We don't have the figures with but we did end up deeper in the black (financially) than we did last year."

The winner of the 1983 state bluegrass championship title after three days of competition was Southern Star Bluegrass from Plant City. The band was presented with a $1,500 cash prize and the Miller Cup, all donated by Apex Distributing Co., of Lakeland.

Pine Valley Bluegrass, a Fort Meade band. finished second in the balloting by independent judges and received $1,000 and a trophy from Fore Oil Co. (Shell) of Auburndale. Southland Bluegrass, another Plant City group, received a $500 prize and trophy from Sun Bank for its third-place finish.

Other bands that participated were Hot Air Supply, Highlands County Bluegrass, The Ramblin' Roses, Sleepless Nights, Dizzy Ramblers and The Beaumont Family, last year's runner-up band.

Winners of the Auburndale Star's Best of Show trophy in the clogging competition were The Heart of Dixie Cloggers, an all girl group from Orlando that beat out such groups as the Black Mountain Cloggers and the Sandy Country Cloggers, both of Auburndale; the Sundancers and Sundance Kids; and the Dixie Land Cloggers.

Individual championship performers, all winners of $100, were Eddie Barrs of St Petersburg on the fiddle (trophy donated by HaSaj Ltd.. Inc.), Larry Jackson of Polk City on the banjo (trophy donated by Info-Quest Systems Inc.). and Ira Sandridge on the mandolin (trophy donated by Jacquin Florida Distilling Co. ).

Like the 1982 festival, this year's show was blessed by good weather. Interestingly enough. the show began just as one bad weather front was leaving and ended just as another bad front moved into the area.

"That church stuff really works," said Carl Allen, master of ceremonies and festival originator. "I guess Quentin Edwards (a local pastor who opened the show with an invocation Sunday) has a lot of connections with the man upstairs.

"It rained all around us and we still had beautiful sunny weather."

The festival was also fortunate in that no trouble was reported by the Auburndale Police Department.

"We've never had any problems with these kind of shows." Police Chief Allen Hobbs said late Sunday. "It's been real quiet, everyone cooperated real well."

The festival opened Friday at 5 p.m., but official opening ceremonies didn't begin until 8 p.m. At that time. the crowd was introduced to Frank Stanley, a local attorney and longtime resident who had had Friday named in his honor by Mayor Bobby Green.

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