File Photo/Larry N. Souders

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The 78th annual Roan Mountain Rhododendron Festival will be held this weekend, June 21 and 22, at Roan Mountain State Park.

Sponsored by the Roan Mountain Citizens Club, the two-day festival will feature arts and crafts, delicious food and great entertainment.

June 1947 saw the first of the Rhododendron Festivals, conceived and carried out by the Roan Mountain Citizens Club as a two-day celebration to memorialize and perpetuate the most gorgeous display of natural beauty on the North American continent.

In recent years, the festival has been held in Roan Mountain State Park, located at the foot of Roan Mountain, and continues to feature handmade crafts, food and a variety of traditional music, plus an array of old-time folkway demonstrations.

Parking is by donation to local civic groups. Admission, demonstrations and entertainment are free all day both days. The festival features more than 100 arts and crafts vendors, a variety of food and the world’s largest natural rhododendron gardens atop 6,000-foot Roan Mountain.

The Roan Mountain Citizens Club will have cookbooks, auto tags and T-shirts available for purchase at the festival. They will also be selling ice-cold canned drinks and bottled water. All proceeds go to Roan Mountain community projects at schools, the fire department, etc.

A mini-auction for scholarships for Cloudland High School graduates will be conducted between performances. Festival vendors and local businesses have donated items.

Also, the Tennessee Plant Show will be joining the festival this year and will feature a fresh restock of pretty plants.

As for the rhododendron bloom in the park and on the mountain, a spokesman for the Roan Mountain Citizens Club said even though there had been a lot of rain this week, “hopefully the blooms are still hanging on.”