Thousands Flock to Owego For Strawberry Festival

6/16/2012 (Updated 11:12:32 PM)

OWEGO -- The Village of Owego once again hosted its annual Strawberry Festival for the 32nd straight year.  With all of downtown closed off to traffic, visitors from all across the Southern Tier packed the streets of the village. 

"It's nice to see Owego put itself on display and have people from out of town come in and see what we have to offer." said Eileen Bundy of Owego.

But nine months ago as most of downtown Owego was underwater,  the Strawberry Festival seemed like an impossibility. 

"So many of the businesses were totally wiped out if you ask me, at least on the first floor," said John Wickland of Owego.  "If you were standing right here it would have been up to your chest.  Downtown has really recovered well."

But business owners spent weeks and months getting downtown Owego back into shape, and fittingly this year's theme for the Strawberry Festival is "Celebrate,"  marking the importance of Owego's recovery.

"I think it's very important it's raising everybody's spirits," Bundy said.  "It's showing everyone that we've recovered somewhat from the flood and that Owego's back."

And back in full force.  Wickland says while it's not the biggest crowd he remembers, he's impressed with the number of people that attended this year.

"I've been coming to this for almost two decades with my kids and everything and it used to be you could hardly walk here," he said.  "There's an awful lot of people here, it looks like a pretty good turn out to me."

So, with train rides, jugglers, magicians and live music, what's the biggest draw of the weekend?

"Food, primarily, with having three small children that's what their anticipating, all the different kinds of food," Bundy said.

And of course the most popular food of the weekend is none other than the strawberry.  From strawberry flavored kettle corn, to strawberry shortcakes, chocolate dipped strawberries, or just the classic fruit itself, there were strawberries as far as the eye could see. 

In Owego, Jeremy Donovan, Fox 40 News.

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