Peanut Valley Festival gears up

PORTALES — Eastern New Mexico’s 45th annual celebration of all things peanut is back.

The Roosevelt County Fairgrounds in Portales this weekend hosts the Peanut Valley Craft & Music Festival.

Organizers are touting some new features — and of course a whole lot of peanuts — at this year’s event.

Karl Terry, executive director of the Roosevelt County Chamber of Commerce, said one of the biggest changes to the festival, which runs from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, is coming to the health fair.

The fair, which generally includes over 20 stations and will be offering flu shots, has moved from the pavilion to the east side of the events arena.

“We think that will help them get found a little bit quicker,” Terry said.

The health fair moved out of the pavilion to accommodate the Western Frontier Gun Show, a new addition to the peanut festival.

Terry said the gun show is a separate event, has slightly different operating hours and has a daily admission price of $6 (the other festival activities are free to attend), though he expects it will help generate some extra foot traffic for the festival.

He said the festival will also feature a service dog demonstration for the first time this year and a pair of interactive demos, one about watershed and another by Xcel Energy.

Of course, given the event’s namesake, Terry said the Portales Women’s Club will be selling everything from raw peanuts to peanut brittle.

“This is the season for peanuts and they’ve got new crop Valencia peanuts that will be available,” Terry said.

Terry said the Goober Gallery will also return to the event featuring peanut-inspired artwork created by Portales students, though the peanut butter sculpture he was hoping for never materialized.

“I guess that medium is just a little not quite followed enough,” Terry said with a chuckle.

With 100-plus vendors on hand, Terry said the event offers residents the perfect chance to get a head start on some holiday shopping.

“The big thing about the peanut festival is we’ve kind of gotten a reputation of being one of the better arts and crafts festivals and that’s really the core part ... is the fact that we’ve got vendors who’ve got quality merchandise,” Terry said.

One of those vendors is Diane Martinez who said the festival was the first out-of-town show she ever attended nearly 40 years ago.

Martinez will back again this year to sell her award-winning pottery and to see the people that she says over the years have become far more than just customers.

“(I like) seeing all my friends — no really — they’re not like customers, they’re like friends and family now after all these years,” Martinez said. “It’s like being at home, it’s so friendly.”

For the music portion of the event, Terry said the folklorico dancers from La Casita Elementary in Clovis will return, who have been a big hit in recent years.

As will Andy Mason, who Terry said will perform anything from children’s songs to all sorts of covers, based on the audience.

One new edition musically will be the group Tucumcari Crossroads based out of — you guessed it — Tucumcari.

“They’re kind of a bluegrass and country and it’s a younger set of band members and they have really tight harmony and I’m really excited to hear them play,” Terry said.

Ultimately he said the point of the event is to just enjoy a, fingers crossed, sunny weekend on the High Plains.

“You can just have a great time and hopefully that’s what they’ll come away with, a relaxing day out in Portales,” Terry said. “A little bit of shopping, a little bit of eating and a little of bit relaxing and enjoying the music and entertainment.”