Wilmington’s annual Azalea Festival will be held April 5-8. This 53-year tradition brings our coastal community together to celebrate spring and the beautiful, blooming azaleas.

We owe the spring celebration to Dr. Houston Moore, a resident of Wilmington who lobbied for fourteen years for a festival to honor his blooming azaleas. In 1948, the first Azalea Festival was held under the supervision of a businessman named Hugh Morton. There was budget of $5,000 to create a festival that the town could appreciate.

Jacqueline Moore, an actress, was the Azalea Festival’s first Queen. Many town leaders worried that no one would show up to the festival. However, 75,000 people came to witness the various attractions that the festival had to offer, such as a parade, concerts and art shows. The festival has grown a lot over the past 50 years and is now called the North Carolina Azalea Festival.

According to Elaine Henson, the publicity chairman for the garden tours, over 700 volunteers have worked all year long to put together this spring celebration. One of the groups that works with the Azalea Festival Committee is the Azalea Festival Teenage Division, a group of students from local high schools.

Girls in grades 10-12 in the local area can also play a large part in the Azalea Festival by applying to be an Azalea Belle. There are 90 Azalea Belles that are taking part in the festival this year. The belles dress up in traditional “southern belle hoop dresses” and participate in diplomacy-type activities. They are part of the Azalea Queen’s entourage and some of them accompany her during the festival while others appear at different events. During the ribbon cutting ceremony scheduled for Friday morning, all 90 of the belles will be present and dressed in their colorful dresses.

The 2001 Azalea Festival Queen is Nikki DeLoach, of the band Innocence. Her coronation will be this morning at 10 a.m. in Riverfront Park on Water Street. Tony Bennett will be performing in Trask Coliseum tonight at 8 p.m.

On Friday, the festivities begin with a tour of Greenfield Garden, which will remain open for the duration of the festival. Visitors can take a scenic, five-mile drive around Greenfield Lake.

The annual Juried Spring Art Show and Sale will take place from 10 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. and the Street Fair will begin later in the evening, lasting from 7 p. m. until 10 p.m. There will be 35 different food vendors to please everyone’s appetites. At 9 p.m., the Main Stage Entertainment at Riverfront Park presents the Christian band, Avalon.

This year’s Azalea Festival is sure to be a great success. “I’m looking forward to the Street Fair and the different vendors,” senior Naomi Strickman said. “We don’t have anything like this where I am from.”

The Annual Azalea Garden Tour Kickoff and Ribbon-Cutting begins at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday. This tour will display various gardens of exceptional grandeur and will last through Saturday and Sunday. The Garden Tour is the quintessential part of the Azalea Festival, as it was the original purpose of the celebration. For $10 a 3-day pass can be purchased for visiting all of the ten gardens on display for the festival. Every penny of this ticket money goes towards community beautification grants. About $30,000 was raised last year and distributed to several beautification projects in the local area, Henson said.

In the past, money from these tours has gone to UNCW landscaping projects. Following the 1962 Azalea Festival, proceeds were donated to UNCW, then known as Wilmington College. For the 1980 event, the big project was the landscaping of the Pedestrian Mall and Plaza at UNCW. That year, the Azalea Festival Club also established the Edna Applebury Bluebird Trail at the university. The following year, the ribbon cutting ceremony, with guest Bob Hope, was actually held at the newly landscaped Pedestrian Mall and 29 nesting boxes were placed on the bluebird trail. Finally, in 1984, a grant was given to UNCW for the landscaping of the Student Union Building.

The annual Azalea Festival parade will take place on Saturday, April 7 at 9 a.m. Viewers will be able to see various floats, animals, including horses and elephants, and marching bands.

“I think (the parade) is the number one crowd pleaser,” Henson said. “That is the jewel in the crown as far as the festival is concerned.”

At 7:30 p.m., Sammy O’Banion and the Mardi Gras Band will play beach music at Riverfront Park. An exciting fireworks display will follow at 9 p.m. Country singers Mark Chestnutt and Ty Herndon will perform at 7:30 p.m. in Trask Coliseum.

On Sunday, April 8, the festivities continue with the triathlon at 9 a.m. This event will start at UNCW’s swimming pool, located in Trask Coliseum. The 425 participants will then have to bike for 12.4 miles and run for 3 miles. Also beginning at 9 a.m. is the popular Azalea Festival Horse Show at Hugh MacRae Park. The Street Fair will also continue at Riverfront Park.

Some of the events that take place during the Azalea Festival do require money, but many of the events are free. For a complete schedule of events, visit the Web site at http://azalea.wilmington.org.