Big Cypress plans festival

GREENFIELD — The year 2012 marks Tennessee State Parks’ 75th anniversary, and to help commemorate this important milestone, Big Cypress Tree State Park will host its annual Fall Festival Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Free and open to the public, the event will feature live music, food and crafts. In addition, visitors can view Reelfoot Lake State Park’s Birds of Prey program, a “Creatures of the Night” presentation by the Natural History Educational Company of the Midsouth and a demonstration by Pinson Mounds State Park on the prehistoric weapons and tools of Tennessee. An air-evac life team will also land and present at the festival.
The University of Tennes-see at Martin Ecology Club will feature plants and study “skins” from the lab, in addition to leading hikes in the park. UT-Martin’s geology instructor, Eleanor Gardner, also will display different types of rocks, minerals and fossils while providing activities for children. Those activities will include measuring the stride of a dinosaur’s footprints, coloring fossil pages and sifting through material from the fossil-rich Coon Creek site located in McNairy County.
Also making an appearance will be Tennessee State Parks’ new traveling anniversary exhibit, which hit the road this year to tour state parks and various communities.   
Big Cypress Tree is a natural area that lies in the floodplain of the Middle Fork of the Obion River in West Tennessee. For more information about Big Cypress, visit http://www.tn.gov/environment/parks/BigCypress/.

Published in The Messenger 11.2.12

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