This report has been contributed by Thais Ackerman, a student from Mercer University’s Center for Collaborative Journalism.
Macon’s Annual International Cherry Blossom Festival hosts some unique events.
The wide array of scheduled activities include the food truck frenzy, Easter egg hunt and the grand finale glow.
One function sticks out from the rest — the bed race.
The bed race is an event where contestants decorate beds on wheels and push them starting at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to a finish line at Third Street in downtown Macon.
We were “Just Curious,” how did the bed race start?
Marvel Burgess, 2018 chair of the festival, said the idea to include the the bed race in the celebration’s events came about out of fun, but the idea of a bed race seems to have originated from another festival.
The race has nothing to do with cherry blossoms but it has been apart of Macon’s cherry blossom celebration for over a decade, Burgess said.
“People seem to love it,” she said. “The spectators get excited and they cheer for their favorite bed.”
The Macon-Bibb County Fire Department has been a recurrent winner for all but one of of the years the bed race has been run.
This year, the Centerville Fire Department participated to “bring on the heat” at the bed race but Macon-Bibb County firefighters came out on top and brought home the bed race trophy once again on Saturday.
“I don’t know if everyone’s seen the calendar, but if you have you will understand Bibb County Fire Department is not a group to be reckoned with,” Burgess said.
