Downtown Troy home to annual arts festival

The 12th annual TroyFest arts and craft festival will be held in downtown Troy this weekend.

The festival is held in honor of Jean Thompson Lake, an artist born in Troy in 1929.

Lake started painting as a child, and her works were shown throughout the southeast, winning several awards.

After Lake’s death in 1976, her friends created a two-day art show in her honor by combining local art shows.

The first Jean Lake Memorial Art Show was held in 1982 at the grounds of the Pike Pioneer Museum.

The festival moved to downtown Troy in 2003 and took on the name TroyFest.

TroyFest was named an “Official Year of Alabama Art Event” in 2006 as well as a “Top 10 Event by the Alabama Bureau of Travel and Tourism.”

“I’ve been to TroyFest a few times,” Blake Johnson, a senior social science major from Odenville, said. “I’ve always had a great time, and it is really the only thing Troy ever does.”

TroyFest is free and open to the public and draws thousands of visitors annually.

There will be food, entertainment, various activities, and art for people of all ages.

“I haven’t been yet, but I plan on going this year,” Daryl Bouchelion, a junior criminal justice major from Birmingham said. “The diversity and art really interest me.”

The festival will be held downtown at the square and will run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, April 25, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, April 26.