What sets the Blueberry Festival apart from the rest?

By: Andrea Alvarez

Posted: Sep 1, 2017 5:39 PM EDT | Updated: Sep 1, 2017 7:20 PM EDT

NOW: What sets the Blueberry Festival apart from the rest?

PLYMOUTH, Ind. -- What makes the Blueberry Festival so different? Why are so many families drawn to this festival in particular?

From the unique vendors to the festival having its own theme each year, this festival knows when to change it up for the millennials but they also know how to take it back a few years.

“They want to bring everybody back to Marshall County that’s been away for a while sort of like a homecoming,” said Mike Boys, parade Grand Marshall.

Every year, the Marshall County Blueberry Festival hosts a new theme attracting both new and old festival-goers alike.

But for this year’s theme, Parade Grand Marshall Mike Boys says they’re using an old theme and taking it back to the beginning with Back Home Again in Marshall County.

“That also started 51 years ago when Indiana celebrated its sesquicentennial,” said Boys.

Boys said the governor of Indiana in the 1960’s, Roger Branigin, encouraged all across the state to celebrate the 150th anniversary.

He added, “We decided well, something should be done”

This prompted Marshall County to bring back as many people as they could for this celebration

“That’s kind of how that correlates with the theme today,” said Boys.

After the historical festival back in the 1960’s, Boys says everyone had so much fun that a committee was formed.

Boys continued, “To come up with a festival, the name of a festival, there was strawberries, and there’s apples, in fact it was almost called a pickle festival! But there’s also a lot of blueberries that were grown here in Marshall County as well.”

And so was the festival you see here today.

“And so everybody had so much fun, that they said we ought a do this every year,” he said.

Now we have this theme made to represent those who recently returned for school and those who have been here in the past. But if neither of those are reasons for you to visit, boys has one for you, “You know to meet your family, your friends, and to just have fun here… because there’s something for everyone,” said Boys.