4/8/2008 - Students in the hospitality and tourism program at Western Carolina University are a force behind the town of Dillsboro’s inaugural Appalachian Growers’ Fair, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 19, at the Monteith Farmstead.

Twenty-one students from Professor Cynthia Deale’s hospitality and tourism marketing class and tourism planning and development class contributed to the event. Working in groups, students identified and contacted musicians and other talent, recruited student groups from other departments to participate, designed the festival site, designed a logo and solicited items for a silent auction. Many students will serve as volunteers on event day.

“Through this project, students have learned firsthand to work for a client, to work within a limited budget, to be flexible, to develop marketing materials, to solicit sponsors and vendors and to plan, set-up and staff an event,” Deale said. “Students have learned that tourism planning at all levels involves collaboration, creativity and complexity. I don’t think that they will soon forget this experience.”

The growers’ fair is a showcase for local agriculture and a fundraiser for the future Appalachian Women’s Museum. The event will feature an auction, seed exchange, open-air plant and produce market, demonstrations, speakers, workshops, live music and food from local vendors.

The Monteith Farmstead Restoration Committee and the town of Dillsboro are sponsoring the Appalachian Growers’ Fair. The town purchased the farmstead in 2003 with the intention of developing the 16-acre site into a public facility. Plans are to house the Appalachian Women’s Museum in the main house. The farmstead is just past Harold’s Supermarket entering Dillsboro from Sylva on U.S. Highway 23.

Alison McNeil, a senior from Advance, was part of a four-person committee that spent about a month soliciting auction items from businesses in Sylva and Dillsboro, securing hundreds of dollars worth of goods including two tickets for the Great Smoky Mountain Railway, a Bob Timberlake print, pottery, a Vera Bradley bag and an assortment of gift certificates.

McNeil’s involvement with the Appalachian Growers’ Fair served as her senior project in her tourism planning and development class, but the event’s importance goes beyond a grade. “Most of our projects in the hospitality and tourism major were hypothetical, but this one is going to happen,” McNeil said. “It’s exciting to see the results of all our hard work.”

The Western students “exceeded all expectations” in helping organize the event, said Emily Elders, Dillsboro’s assistant administrator and the event organizer. Elders contacted Deale in December about collaborating. When she visited Deale’s classes in January, Elders had explain where Dillsboro was. “I said, it’s what you drive through to get to U.S. 441 from Sylva,” she recalled. “The students were like, that’s a town?”

McNeil said the project left her wondering why she hadn’t explored Sylva and Dillsboro sooner. “I’ve been here four years, and I didn’t even know some of the shops existed,” she said. “You don’t realize what’s in the nooks and crannies until you get out on the street and walk it.”

Apart from the Monteith Farmstead, more than 30 hospitality and tourism students are assisting the town of Dillsboro in building sustainable tourism. They have worked with the town on market positioning, developing tourism plans and suggesting businesses and events that would increase the town’s draw.

Elders said the collaboration is an opportunity to strengthen both WCU and Jackson County. “I strongly believe that more partnerships between Western and local communities is vital to our continued growth together,” she said.

For more information about the Appalachian Growers’ Fair, call Emily Elders, festival organizer, at (828) 399-9691 or e-mail her at emily.elders@dillsboronc.info. For more information about WCU’s hospitality and tourism program in the College of Business, contact Cynthia Deale, associate professor of hospitality and tourism, at (828) 227-2148 or deale@email.wcu.edu.

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Last modified: Wednesday, April 9, 2008