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The festival day begins with a parade that includes a special dignitary as Grand Marshal. Collins' native son Gerald McRaney of Hollywood fame was featured as the first Grand Marshal in 1990 and returned again in 1999 as Grand Marshal to help celebrate the tenth anniversary of the festival. Guests during the days' events will need to stop their clocks awhile to enjoy carnival rides, contests, children's fair, arts and crafts displays, entertainment, food booths, health fair, manufacturing displays, education displays, quilt and art exhibits and a street dance. Skies shed amber waves of sun onto the Seminary Founders'’ Day celebration the first Saturday in November. Visitors are welcomed with friendly smiles to vicariously create arts and crafts from the past as they watch artisans at work preserving our heritage. It’s anything but all work and no play. |
Festivals are fun ways to soak up local color and meet the friendly people in our county. That’s exactly the goal of the 20,000 guests who frequent the Okatoma extravaganza in Collins the first Saturday in May. The festival, selected as a First Place winner in the 1991 "Look Around Mississippi" community celebration program and sponsored by the Mississippi Economic Council, began as a one-day festival. Now it has expanded to a week of activities including an Okatoma Festival Queen contest, rubber duck race, canoe race, 10K race, school and church reunions, musical concert and creative writing contest.