By SABRINA BERNDT

Washington Daily News

Five years after the introduction of the North Carolina Black Bear Festival, Plymouth is known as, “where traffic ends and adventure begins.”

The fifth-annual Black Bear Festival embraced new ideas while remaining true to its main mission: to raise awareness about eastern North Carolina’s black bears. Half water festival and half bear festival, it is believed that the number of Saturday attendees was almost double that of last year, making it the most successful year yet.

“Our festival is a mixture of whimsical and educational, and it’s family friendly,” said Tom Harrison, the festival Director and founder. “I think that’s part of the reason people keep coming back.”

The festival began with just a simple idea. When working at the Washington County Travel & Tourism office, Harrison was showing a colleague his bear photography when she suggested a festival that showcased the animal.

Three days later, Harrison found a team to bring the idea to life. Three months later, they created the first Black Bear Festival. With over 30 events and 7,000 attendees, it won the “Rising Star Award” from the North Carolina Association of Festivals and Events. The 2018 festival had about 30,000 attendees.

“I didn’t want to wade in and try something small and conservative and see how it would work,” Harrison said. “No, I jumped in with everything but the kitchen sink. I wanted to plant the flag in Plymouth and say this is home of the North Carolina Black Bear Festival.”

While other festivals may do the same thing every year, Harrison constantly comes up with new ideas for future years. This year, for example, featured a motorcycle stunt show with Kenny Haskell, Brent Schwalm and Rick Janesky, a bass tournament and mechanical bear rides.

All of the original ideas come from Harrison, but sometimes he finds inspiration from other festivals or amusement parks.

“I can take an idea and make it my own,” Harrison said. “I was in Disney World, in Animal Kingdom watching a light show, and that gave me an idea for last night. We had a fire truck spraying water across the river and had great big lights on it while the fireworks were going off.”

Along with the festival, Harrison created the Bear-Ology Black Bear Museum to educate the public year-round. The museum seeks to promote eastern North Carolina’s black bears, which are the largest and most abundant in the world.

Following Harrison’s example, the town soon adopted the bear theme. Black bears are everywhere: the town’s water tower, prescription bottle caps, police cars and businesses.

“It’s really changed our marketing strategy, it’s changed the way the residents think of ourselves and it’s made a difference econo