Tonight marked the beginning of the Turlock Melon Carnival, which will run from 10 a.m until the late evening tomorrow in downtown Turlock on Main Street. The event has no entry free and offers food from a variety of vendors, carnival games to support nonprofits, and free musical performances and competitions including cantaloupe eating and melon rolling competitions.

Tonight’s events included a Miss Melon Pageant and live music and dancing on main street.

The Miss Melon Pageant had women from ages 5 to 50 from all over the county, from Ceres, Turlock and even Salida, competing in five different divisions for the title of Miss Melon.

Girls under 10 competed for the title of “Little Miss Melon,” girls 10 to 14 competed for “Junior Miss Melon,” those 15 to 21 for “Miss Melon,” from 22 to 40 for “Ms. Melon” and 41 and above for “Mature Miss Melon.”

The girls danced, sang, and were asked questions about themselves to endear themselves to the judges and the audience to earn their title.

The show began with the Little Miss Melon division answering questions on-stage drawn from a bowl.

One of the contestants, Millie, was asked what her favorite melon was and why.

“It’s watermelon,” she said, “Because it’s sweet and juicy!”

Travis Regalo, the Executive Director of the Turlock Downtown Property Owners Association (TDPOA), explains that the Turlock Historical Society was inspired when they came across the photos of the carnival in their archives when cleaning out their storage room.

“The idea of it was to create an event that the community could come together for, be beneficial,” he said, “As kind of a central fundraiser for all of the community to come together and all of the non-profits to benefit from it.”

Regalo also wanted to emphasize how proud the Melon Carnival Committee is to put together an event without an entry fee.

“It’s designed for a family to come and enjoy themselves, watch the entertainment. They don’t have to spend a single dime to be part of the community.”

Lori Smith, the Chair of the Melon Carnival Committee, corroborated the history told by Regalo, and explained that the festival was mainly set in motion by the positive reception she received on a social media post she made for the historical society about the evolution of the Turlock Melon Carnival into the Stanislaus County Fair.

“I’m personally looking forward to seeing, hopefully, a lot of people downtown enjoying it,” she said, “And being that I’m with the museum, sharing our history, because we’ve got such a great history.”

She says this inspired local business owners to come together to try and make the festival happen, because Turlock hasn’t had an annual festival to call its own since the early 2000s.

“That’s what I love about our downtown,” she says, “We’ve got a lot of active people that are passionate about downtown, and our town, and our history, too.”