Apple Festival’s setup man will be parade grand marshal
For almost two decades, Joe Sewell, the Gilmer Chamber’s information specialist, has helped get the Georgia Apple Festival set up, running smoothly and taken down each year.
For the past 12 years, he’s been a key official behind the scenes of the ever-growing event that draws tens of thousands to the Lions Club Fairgrounds.
As the 51st annual Apple Festival approaches, Sewell, 82, is stepping back from the event setup and coordination role. But it’s not full-on retirement, just yet.
“Somebody else is going to be taking it over, but I was asked to supervise. I’m working with everybody so they’ll know what’s going on. I’ve been there and done that, so to speak,” Sewell said.
A lot goes into it
When Sewell first started helping prepare for the Apple Festival, it was as a volunteer assisting the Lions Club, which presents the event along with the chamber. The first year he helped out, the fairgrounds and Lions Club had been flooded.
“There had been a big cloud burst. The water was so deep and so quick, it went all the way up and was lapping up against South Main Street in front of the Lions Club. In the Lions Club, it was about 4 feet deep. It was a mess,” he remembered. “I volunteered to go down there to help them clean up and got started helping them lay out (the festival).”
Despite the challenges involved — and there are always challenges — Sewell has enjoyed helping build the festival from the ground up each year. He enjoys being outdoors, anyway, so working to set up and maintain the fest has been a good fit in that respect.
“I love the outdoors. I don’t like being hemmed up,” Sewell said. “I like being behind the scenes. I’ve really enjoyed it and met a lot of people.”
The setup process, which starts in September, requires more physical and mental preparation than one might expect, he explained.
“There’s more to it than a lot of people think about. You don’t walk in and walk out in one day and it’s done. There’s a lot that goes into getting ready for it,” Sewell said. “Right now, I’m getting my list up to order stuff we’re going to need — ant powder, wasp spray and everything.”
The onsite setup process starts with locating steel pins lodged in the fairground dirt. Once all the pins are found and marked, spaces for more than 300 15x15-foot vendor booths are sectioned off and marked.
“There are 63 pins out there. To find all of them, you’ve got to find one pin that’s 100 feet from the building, which lines up. When you find that pin, you can find all these other ones,” Sewell said. “You’ve got to find it with a metal detector because some of the pins are an inch or two underground, and some are further down.”
Along with that metal detector, Sewell carries a can of red spray paint and a pointy homemade device fashioned from a broomstick that he pokes in the ground to find the buried pins.
“I spray paint (the pin area) with red paint. That way, when we come back to set up the Monday before the festival, we don’t have to find all these pins. Otherwise, you’d never have it set up right. It would be crooked with short-made booths and everything else,” he said.
Those tall festival road signs with such appley names as Red Delicious Drive and Rome Beauty Boulevard? Sewell’s also responsible for getting them lined up and hammered into the ground one by one, making the sprawling fest easier to navigate.
“Having the street signs makes a lot of difference every year in finding out where you’re going and (if) somebody gets lost,” he said.
Carrying a walkie-talkie, which event volunteers and emergency services personnel also do during the festival, has come in handy many times over the years, Sewell explained. EMS is always inside the fairground gate to assist with medical emergencies, he said.
“About three years ago, I ran up on a heart attack victim,” Sewell said. “I called the EMTs. In a short time, they were there taking care of him. Everybody was on top of the situation, and, as far as I know, he survived.”
Fortunately, Sewell has been assisted in the annual setup process by some of his Chamber colleagues and personnel from Isaiah House, a local faith-based recovery center.
Todd Page, Isaiah House program coordinator, will be taking over the festival setup duties, according to the chamber.
‘Concierge-level customer service’
With a background in accounting and time in the Navy, Sewell worked as a truck driver and instructor for J.B. Hunt Transport before retiring in 2002.
“I’d go from the East Coast to the West Coast, turn around and come back and be gone for four weeks at a time. Driving in the mountains out west is a whole different ball game,” he said.
Sewell and his wife, Pat, moved here from Dalton in 2004. Some of his family had lived in Gilmer for years before that. Since 2009, he’s been a familiar and welcoming face at the chamber’s main location in East Ellijay and, most recently, at the Downtown Ellijay Welcome Center. There, Sewell said, there’s no telling who you’ll meet on any given day.
“Last year I had a couple from Russia, a couple from Argentina and a couple from South Africa. This year, I had a family from Australia (stop in),” he added.
An official statement from the Gilmer Chamber recognized the hundreds of hours Sewell has devoted to the Apple Festival, as well as the “concierge-level customer service” he provides, which “consistently ranks among the top pieces of public feedback the chamber receives.” All that has made the affable information specialist “something of a local celebrity,” according to the chamber.
“Joe Sewell has greeted tens of thousands of visitors from all around the world to Ellijay and shared what makes Georgia’s Apple Capital the special place that it is,” the chamber stated.
Sewell recently got some good, if not also surprising, news from his chamber colleagues. He’s going to be the grand marshal of this year’s Apple Festival Parade.
The parade will head through downtown Saturday, Oct. 15, beginning at noon. The parade theme is “Mountain Life.” The Apple Festival is set for Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 8-9 and 15-16.
“I was speechless for a while. I wasn’t expecting that and everything,” said Sewell about being approved to lead the parade, which will be a first for him.
Sewell said he’ll still be working at the Downtown Welcome Center through the week greeting people, answering questions, giving directions and whatever else that helps visitors have a pleasant experience here.
“Over the years, I’ve gotten good letters and compliments (about the Apple Festival and the welcome center). That means a lot to me. I was taught in school many years ago to sell yourself and sell your product. My product, right now is Gilmer County,” he said.