25 years of WinterFest

A community event that truly gives back

BY MOSS BRENNAN

Twenty-five years ago, a group of business owners got together to talk about what they could do to help support the economy in Blowing Rock.

Now, 25 years later, that idea is one of the biggest events in Blowing Rock each year that brings thousands of people to town and encourages locals to not hibernate, but rather celebrate.

That event, of course, is WinterFest, put on by the Blowing Rock Chamber of Commerce and sponsored by Hendrick Luxury Auto.

“WinterFest was actually started by a group of business owners who did it on a volunteer basis,” said Charles Hardin, one of the original members and the president of the Blowing Rock Chamber of Commerce. “We put together a group of folks and they came up with this idea and it was based on this whole tagline don’t hibernate, celebrate. Originally, it was more about getting locals out of their houses and getting them out of hibernation in winter, and get them out to celebrate winter.”

Over the years it’s become a big attraction and a tourism event for Blowing Rock as it attracts thousands of people every year.

Jimmy Crippen was one of the main people spear heading that effort in the late 90s. He used to own Crippen’s Restaurant in Blowing Rock and he and his wife are credited by many as the starters of WinterFest.

“The winters in Blowing Rock were brutal as far as economy was concerned,” Crippen said. “we as a restaurant struggled to get through the wintertime without having to beg the bank to cover payroll. My wife and I were trying to figure out what to do in the wintertime and how to make more business and she actually came up with the idea of ‘Don’t these towns do winter carnivals and things like that.’”

So Crippen went to his dial up internet at the time — he said AOL — and started searching for different winter carnivals and festivals and found a lot of places did that.

“I started looking at their itineraries going through their schedules and going ‘oh, a polar plunge” We could do that. Oh, a treasure hun? We can do that,’” Crippen said. “So I pitched the idea. I put together a small planning group of about 10 people to kind of lead the way and we put together our very first Blowing Rock WinterFest.”

According to a 1999 Watauga Democrat article, that first Win- terFest seemingly paid off as many of the lodging businesses reportedly had no vacancy and the event helped filled restaurants — which Crippen said in that same article was “a shot in the arm.”

That very first WinterFest didn’t go quite as planned, Crippen said. The fog in Blowing Rock was so bad that people sitting in dining rooms couldn’t even see the parade go by. But as events do, it evolved over the years. One of the more subtle changes was the logo each year when they had the snowman, which Hardin said came out in the very early 2000s

“It was just the little guy snowman on that logo and he didn’t have a scarf. He didn’t have a hat. There were no birds. There was no girlfriend. That’s just him with his head was bare and everything,” Hardin said. “So every year our graphic artist would add something else.”

A scarf was added, then a hat. It kept growing from there. The artist then decided the snowman needed a girlfriend. So a snow woman was added. Some birds then came along above them and they decided it was time for the two to be engaged. So a ring was added above them the following year and that WinterFest had a big “engagement part.”

The next year they had he wedding and had the snow mascots get married during that year’s WinterFest.

While the logos changed, the community has not. One of the main impacts of the event is how much it raises for local nonprofits. For example, the silent auction for Mountain Alliance at WinterFest in 2022 raised just shy of $26,000.

For Crippen, who is no longer in Blowing Rock, that community impact is no surprise.

“That’s what community is all about, isn’t it?” Crippen said. “It started out with community. Everybody in there saying ‘what do we do?’ and then the more we did things, the more we thought ‘how can we get back and what can we do to help?’ 25 years this festival is going on. For me, it’s it’s one of my most proud achievements. I got a lot of little projects that I enjoyed, but I think the WinterFest probably stood the test of time more than anything. It just tells me that it was a good idea because the community adopted it and the community keeps it going and, and so it must be good.”

The 25th WinterFest is sponsored by Hendrick Luxury Group, The Tea and Spice Exchange, Chetola Resort, The Blowing Rock and The Speckled Trout.