A Southeast Texas tradition is set to return in Winnie as the 57th annual Texas Rice Festival opens Wednesday, bringing four days of food, music and events centered on the area\u2019s rice harvest.<\/p>\n
More than 300 volunteers have spent weeks preparing for opening day, Texas Rice Festival President Darrell Guidry said. \u201cThere\u2019s over 300 volunteers that come and help with the Rice Festival, to put on the Rice Festival,\u201d Guidry said.<\/p>\n
The festival opens Wednesday at 5 p.m. with free admission on opening day and runs through Saturday.<\/p>\n
For some vendors, the festival is also a long-running family and community tradition. Monica Jones of St. Louis Catholic Church said the church helped start the Rice Festival decades ago. \u201cThe St. Louis Catholic Church actually started the Rice Festival 50-something years ago. They made 50 rice balls in somebody\u2019s kitchen,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n
Jones said the rice balls have grown into one of the festival\u2019s most popular items, with the church selling as many as 16,000 and drawing customers who drive in from Houston. \u201cWe have sold out in the last four or five years on Saturday after, like, 7 o\u2019clock,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
A new vendor is also joining the food lineup this year. Cristo Rey Parish in Beaumont is bringing about 9,000 tamales for its first year at the festival. \u201cI\u2019m praying to God that this is a hit and that it\u2019s a wonderful sale and that y\u2019all like them and that we can sell out,\u201d said Liz Arellano of Cristo Rey Parish.<\/p>\n
The four-day festival includes live music, livestock events and the carnival, along with Friday\u2019s Youth Day and Saturday\u2019s grand parade. Guidry said the festival\u2019s focus remains on the region\u2019s agricultural roots. \u201cIt\u2019s all about the harvest and rice. It\u2019s a celebration of the harvest and rice here in this area,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Organizers said money raised through the festival helps support scholarships and other community programs, including local Little League.<\/p>\n
Some longtime vendors are also preparing for the crowds. Monroe Foreman, who said he owns a Dippin\u2019 Dots ice cream booth, said he has been part of the Texas Rice Festival for 21 years. Foreman said business is typically busiest \u201call day on Friday and Saturday,\u201d adding that Friday is especially strong because \u201cthe kids are out of school on Friday, so that\u2019s always a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Southeast Texas tradition is set to return in Winnie as the 57th annual Texas Rice Festival opens…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-451751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}