Travel Channel gets a taste of Bell Buckle

The Travel Channel's "Taste of America with Mark DeCarlo" will feature Bell Buckle and the Tennessee's RC-Moon Pie Festival on an episode airing 10 p.m. Wednesday.

While filming the festival in 2007, the crew highlighted both the festival, the small town charm of Bell Buckle, and the southern tradition of an RC and a Moon Pie.

During filming of the segment, Linda Simmons of Bell Buckle Country Store fame was encouraged to make homemade Moon Pies in the kitchen of Dennis and Carla Webb, Mayor and First Lady of Bell Buckle, and have a "taste off" with the original Chattanooga Bakery product.

The friendly competition has now spawned a new event for the 2008 RC-Moon Pie Festival with the addition of a baking contest. The major ingredient being either an RC or a Moon Pie.

This year's 14th annual festival will be held Saturday, June 21, beginning with 1,000 runners taking part in the 13th annual RC-Moon Pie 10 Mile Run. The course is challenging, but runners at past events have ranged in age from 10 to over 70.

The festival continues with games, contests, cloggers, country music and bluegrass, and over 50 arts and crafts booths, not to mention the dozens of food booths featuring Southern fare such as Tennessee smoked barbecue, hand squeezed lemonade and deep fried Moon Pies.

The festival also includes the coronation of a king and queen. The 2008 queen is Dr. Phyllis Qualls-Brook, assistant commissioner of Tennessee Community and Industry Relations, and the king is actor/director Lane Davies, who will direct the Tennessee Shakespeare Festival to be held in Bell Buckle the two weekends following the RC-Moon Pie Festival.

Taking center stage as always is the popular synchronized wading extravaganza, referred to by organizers as "dry humor on a wet stage." This year's performance will be "A Midsummer's Nightmare." Director and choreographer Carla Webb said that this year's synchronized wading performance is one of the best since she began performing in a kiddy pool in 1996, as a parody of the Olympic Games being held that year in Atlanta.

The event ends with the cutting of the World's Largest Moon Pie.