Collard Festival deeply rooted in the culture of Ayden

Back in 1975, folks got a good chuckle over the fact that the woman who co-chaired the first-ever Ayden Collard Festival didn’t care a thing for collards.

Lois Theuring had said as much in an article in what was then the local newspaper, the Ayden News Leader, in which the writer and artist had declared: “I hate collards.” Not long afterward, Willis Manning, who was president of the Chamber of Commerce at the time, invited Theuring to help head up the new festival that had been named for her least favorite vegetable. The rest, as they say, is history.

In the five decades since, the Collard Festival, considered to be the “Official Collard Festival of the State of North Carolina,” has added a distinct Southern flavor to Ayden’s culture. In a town that is well-known for barbecue, the festival allows this side dish to take center stage for a little while. There’s a collard queen and a mascot named Colleen, with a parade and an eating contest in between.

“People come back home for the festival,” said Ayden resident Jessica Dennis Edwards. “I think it’s just that idea that you may move away or you may be new, but it’s always something you can come back home to and experience Ayden.”

Edwards is heading up the 50th annual event following the retirement of longtime chairman Pat Tripp, who led the festival for 15 years. But Edwards is deeply rooted in the Collard Festival, having grown up in Ayden as the granddaughter of the late Latham “Bum” Dennis, founder of Bum’s Restaurant, which her father, Larry Dennis, owns today. The restaurant has provided collards for the festival since it began.

Still, the green that Edwards remembers from her earliest days at the festival was not collard greens. It was the color of the ribbons she used to decorate her pink Barbie Jeep for the occasion. She and her sister, Emily, would take the toy vehicle down to Southern Bank to find a good spot to watch the parade. But the two girls didn’t sit on the sidelines for long.

As teens, the girls not only served collards in the family restaurant, they helped to run the collard-eating contest and later the pageant. Emily Dunn is now master of ceremonies for the parade, an event that draws as many as 100 entries and hosted two college bands (East Carolina University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) in 2007.

Not every year has hit such a high note. With the festival coming right after Labor Day, organizers have had to weather the uncertainty of hurricane season in eastern North Carolina. Tropical Storm Hanna forced the cancellation of some activities back in 2008, and in 2019, the festival was postponed for months due to Hurricane Dorian. The following year, Ayden, like communities across the country, called everything off because of the coronavirus pandemic. Some folks were starting to wonder if the Collard Festival would live to be 50.

“In 2021 there was the rumor we were not going to have any more collard festivals,” Edwards said. “But we got the momentum back.”

This year’s event begins Thursday with a Backyard Bandits cruise-in at 4 p.m., followed by carnival rides and an added attraction, a foam party for kids. The popular Imagine Circus performers are back for both Friday night and Saturday. Live music performances will feature Spare Change on Thursday, Soul Psychedelique Orchestra on Friday and Captain Mike and the Shipwrecked (Jimmy Buffett tribute) on Saturday.

“We did go back to a three-day festival this year,” Edwards said. “We’re getting back to our roots a little bit. We’re trying to pay homage to beach music; that’s a big thing with the Collard Festival. Saturday night has always been beach music night. That’s also something, just like collards, that is so North Carolina.”

At 5 p.m. Friday, the festival will recognize members of the Theuring family for Lois Theuring’s contributions. Although Theuring was instrumental in the inaugural festival, her stay in Ayden was somewhat brief. Former Ayden News Leader editor Mitchell Oakley recalls that Theuring, who was not an Ayden native, moved away after a few years. But it appears the festival held fond memories for her. In January of this year, when Theuring died in Milford, Ohio, at age 92, the obituary for the mother of 11 mentioned her involvement in the Ayden Collard Festival.

“When she passed away, one of her children reached out to us regarding the festival,” Edwards said. “It was obviously something that was very important to her.”

Theuring apparently never let her disdain for collards interfere with devotion to her community. Edwards can relate. Despite her Southern roots, she has no love for the leafy greens.

“I’m the chairperson of the Ayden Collard Festival, and I do not eat collards,” Edwards said, laughing. “I don’t cook them. I leave that to professionals. I have planted them. I have sold them. I have watched people eat them.

“There are not very many of us on the committee that enjoy them, but the ones that do are die-hard fans,” she said. “Collards are really a polarizing green. You either love them or you hate them, but people have very strong opinions about them.”