Pickle Pete goes cowboy in 2015
By From staff reports
Published in News on October 16, 2014 1:46 PM
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One Pickle Festival T-shirt design for 2015 is a pickle bull rider.
MOUNT OLIVE -- For the past nearly three decades Pickle Pete and family have paraded across the backs of North Carolina Pickle Festival T-shirts -- a quick look at their antics providing clues to each festival's theme.
This year Pete and crew will feature a pickle barrel racer, racing around a Mt. Olive Pickle barrel, of course), a pickle bull rider and a pickle steer wrestler. The design will be on the back of adult shirts and on the front of children's shirts. The adult shirts will also feature the pickle bull rider on the front of the shirt.
The design for the 2015 festival shirt was unveiled Wednesday. Once again, Graphic Imprints of Billings, Montana, created the design.
The Pickle Festival committee hopes to have 2015 North Carolina Pickle Festival" T-shirts available by Christmas or the first of the year.
"I absolutely love how they take our ideas and put it into a design that expresses exactly what we envision," said longtime Pickle Festival organizer Julie Beck.
Each year, Ms. Beck, who also is president of the Mount Olive Area Chamber of Commerce, presents several theme ideas to Co-chairman, Lynn Williams.
Together, they agreed that the festival should utilize the rodeo theme this year. It was Ms. Beck's idea to include the slogan, "This is not our first rodeo" since next year the festival will celebrate its 29th anniversary April 24-26. A rodeo theme for the 29th annual N.C. Pickle Festival may seem a little unusual for Mount Olive. However, the theme can be attributed to Ms Beck who years ago lived and worked in Montana for four summers and each weekend, she attended a rodeo developing a lifelong passion for the sport.
"It only seemed natural to take Julie's passion for the sport of rodeo and incorporate it into her love for the North Carolina Pickle Festival," Mrs. Williams said. Ms. Beck is searching for entertainment that focuses on a western theme, including cowboys that do rope tricks. For more information call the Chamber office at 919-658-3113.