Ms. Duluth Has Always Been Involved in Fall Festival

Kathryn Willis is a founding and motivating force behind the Duluth Fall Festival that attracts 80,000 to 100,000 folks to the for two fun-filled days the last weekend in September and raises funds for community improvements. Ask anyone about Duluth, GA, and they probably have heard about its fall festival.

The 29th annual festival Sept. 24-25 featured nearly 400 arts and crafts, food and vendor booths, live entertainment, a parade, a silent auction, 5K road race, children’s activities, and a carnival. The festival is the heart of the community, and Willis is in the center of it.

A petite charming southern lady, she’s known as “Ms. Duluth.” If you love Duluth, you’re her friend. And before you know it, you’ve become a member of the Duluth Fall Festival Committee or a sponsor. The festival is so popular that booths are usually all reserved by June, and the Duluth Fall Festival Committee has to turn away late-coming sponsors.

The festival is put on entirely by volunteers who now number nearly 400. They are highly visible during the festival in their colorful T-shirts. There’s a T-shirt in a different color for each year of the festival, and volunteers wear them proudly. Initially, there were three festival committees. Today, there are almost 50 committees. Willis cheerleaded the Sponsorship Committee that recruited 140 sponsors and raised nearly $200,000 in donations including in-kind-services this year.

Willis, who served as co-chairman of the 2011 festival, will again chair it in 2012, the festival’s 30th anniversary year. She previously chaired the festival in 1987 and 1992 and served as co-chairman in 2003. She has always been involved in the festival.

The first festival, held in the spring of 1962 on the streets of downtown Duluth, lasted five weeks and celebrated the city’s history, Willis recalled. In 1976 another spring festival marked the centennial of the city’s charter and the nation’s bicentennial. The current fall festival dates back to late October 1983. “It was cold and rainy, and we only cleared $300,” she said. The festival is now always held the last weekend in September. At the festival wrap-up meeting Oct. 20, it was reported that the 2011 festival cleared between $130,000 to $150,000.

Festival proceeds have been used to build the $1.3 million , which will be paid off next year, Willis said. The committee shared with the city the cost of purchasing land to develop Taylor Park next to Duluth City Hall and funded many other improvement and beautification projects in downtown Duluth, she said.

This year, the Duluth Fall Festival Committee paid for a granite marker on the Duluth Town Green that indicates where the Eastern Continental Divide crosses the city. The marker was dedicated the Thursday before the festival opened. The Eastern Continental Divide runs from Pennsylvania through Florida and demarcates the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico watersheds.

Duluth is the first city in the metro Atlanta area to erect a permanent ECD marker. “We hope marking the divide spreads to other communities, but we wanted to be the first to mark it in a significant way,” Willis said.

The Duluth Fall Festival Committee also sponsors the city’s annual Christmas Tree Lighting and New Year’s Eve Celebration.

Willis said the festival provides opportunities for residents to get to know each other. Planning for next year’s festival begins in October following the festival. It’s not all work, she said. “We have fun.” Committee members get together two evenings each month, she said, for dinner at a local restaurant on the first Thursday and then for a committee meeting on the second Thursday. 

Other committee activities include a summer rally at Willis’ home in June, a picnic at “Wild Wally’s Party Shack” in August, a free community concert on the Duluth Festival Stage in September, and the “Taste of Duluth” featuring fare from Duluth restaurants at the Payne-Corley House, also in September. Her favorite event, Willis said, is the community lunch on the Duluth Town Green for festival workers including police officers, firefighters, city employees, and volunteers during set-up Friday prior to the festival opening.

Everyone admires her stamina and energy. Willis celebrated her 80th birthday on the Duluth Town Green June 8 with a party attended by 1,000 guests and clogged to “Rocky Top” without missing a step or appearing to tire. At the recent fall festival, it was difficult to keep up with her as she checked on things. And if anyone was looking for her: “Oh, she was just here.”

Go to almost any meeting in the city, and Willis is likely to be there. She serves on the Duluth Downtown Development Authority and Gwinnett County’s Special Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) Committee. She is an active member of the Duluth Merchants Association and Duluth First United Methodist Church.

In addition, she serves on the boards of the Gwinnett Hospital System, Gwinnett Medical Center Foundation, Peachtree Christian Hospice, and the Community Foundation of Northeast Georgia.

“I think that giving back to the community is absolutely essential, and I want it to always be the guiding principle in my life,” Willis said.

Willis is the great, great, great granddaughter of Duluth’s founder Evan Howell. A graduate of Wesleyan College in Macon, she has worked full time at Parsons, the family business, for 57 years with many of those years spent in Duluth and now at the new store in Cumming. Parsons is a perennial sponsor of the fall festival. Willis’ grandfather started family stores in 1876, and her parents Calvin and Kate Parsons founded Parsons in Duluth in 1925. Parsons, which sells gifts, collectibles and home décor, also has a store in Alpharetta.

Willis has five children and seven grandchildren, all who live in the Duluth area. Daughters Gin Willis and Kay Montgomery have chaired and co-chaired the Duluth Fall Festival and chaired various committees. Gin Willis chaired the festival in 2010 and 1997. She co-chaired in 2009. Montgomery co-chaired in 2001 and 2005. This year, she chaired committees in charge of the community concert and the festival’s opening ceremony.