Tomorrow  begins the 36th annual Prairie Arts Festival for Starkville’s neighbor, West Point, Mississippi. The arts and crafts festival has been held in downtown West Point since 1968, and locals as well as people from all over Mississippi flock down to the small town for the day.
Activities include a 5k race throughout the town, a children’s carnival, a Classic Cars show and four stages of live music.
Over 300 vendors will be selling their goods and handmade crafts this Saturday. The booths and items for sale cover a range of items including antiques, jewelry, furniture, paintings and clothes. 
All of the downtown stores will also be open to escape  the heat and find great sales. Food venders will be selling classic, home cooked southern food and the fun festival favorites such as funnel cakes, chicken-on-a-stick and fried Oreos.
The festival really puts an emphasis on the importance of local and handmade items.
Lisa Klutts, the director of tourism for West Point and manager of the festival, explained the distinct nature of West Point’s annual festival.
“The Prairie Arts Festival is unique in that we hold a competition between the fine arts venders where they compete in five categories of awards, and even the awards for the 5k race winners are hand-painted pottery pieces from local business Persnickety Pottery,” she said.
Pat Pate, West Point resident and attendee of the annual festival, said she enjoys the feeling of being close knit with the people at the event.
“The people are so friendly, and I love meeting everyone and finding out where they are from,” she said. “My family usually comes to town at this time, too, so it’s a great way to reconnect and spend the day with family.”
The festival is very family friendly, as many of the booths sell children’s toys and clothes, and inflatable jumpers and slides always mark the corner of the festival. The local school, Oak Hill Academy, puts on several carnival games at the KidsZone park downtown for the children to play. 
Car  enthusiasts can attend the classic cars show at the Mossy Oak outlet mall, and music lovers can listen to the classic blues that Mississippi is known for at one of the four live shows during the festival. 
Murry Falkner, a senior at Oak Hill Academy, has grown up attending the festival and said the entire city comes together to partake in the festivities.