It’s hard to believe with the 20/20 hindsight that 25 years
brings, but some Gilroyans didn’t like the idea of a garlic
festival in garlic town.
It’s hard to believe with the 20/20 hindsight that 25 years brings, but some Gilroyans didn’t like the idea of a garlic festival in garlic town.
The fact that the fabulously successful stinking rose celebration exists in Gilroy today is a testament to the dedication and vision of three men: Don Christopher, Val Filice and especially the late Rudy Melone.
In the late 1970s Melone was head of Gavilan Community College. He tried for years to convince fellow Gilroy leaders to bring his idea for a Gilroy Garlic Festival to life – but he found no takers.
Melone knew what he wanted to create – a festival celebrating the much-maligned lily that would feature a garlic queen, a cook-off, music, dancing and local wines. But when he tried to sell his vision, his words fell on deaf ears.
That changed on Nov. 9, 1978, at a Rotary luncheon at Christopher Ranch.
As Rotarians dined on Filice’s scrumptious garlic delicacies, Melone was able to convince garlic farmer Christopher and Filice to create the Gilroy Garlic Festival.
The men approached then-Gilroy Mayor Norman Goodrich. Goodrich refused to run the festival – and, in fact, did not even attend the inaugural Gilroy Garlic Festival.
Undaunted, the men approached the Gilroy Chamber of Commerce. They found a slightly better reception: the Chamber declined the opportunity to run the festival but did offer to operate its beer concession.
Unable to find an existing group to run their brainchild, the Gilroy Garlic Festival Association was incorporated as a nonprofit entity with seed money from Christopher Ranch, Gilroy Foods, Nob Hill Foods, Goldsmith Seeds and others.
Thanks to the vision, dedication and determination of Melone, Christopher and Filice, today Gilroy has a phenomenal festival that benefits the community by serving as a fundraiser for community groups.
It gives the community a wonderful project to work on together. Most importantly, the festival gives Gilroy its identity.
The first Gilroy Garlic Festival was held Aug. 3, 4 and 5, 1979 at Bloomfield Ranch. Organizers expected 5,000 people to come to South Valley to enjoy garlic-laced foods including calamari, scampi, garlic bread and stuffed mushrooms. They were stunned when at least 15,000 people arrived.
From the beginning, the festival was a media favorite. An editorial in The Dispatch shortly after the first festival was held crowed about some of the national newspapers that took notice of the inaugural Garlic Festival, including the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, the New York Times and Time Magazine.
It wasn’t just print media that were enamored of the new stinking rose celebration. At least two television programs – Evening Magazine and the Dinah Shore Shore – broadcast stories about the festival.
This weekend, the silver anniversary Gilroy Garlic Festival will be held at Christmas Hill Park and approximately 4,000 volunteers are expected to greet 130,000 garlic lovers.
The Gilroy Garlic Festival gives approximately $250,000 each year to community groups that send volunteers to the festival – for a total of more than $6 million since the festival’s inception.
Although there have been many changes over the last quarter-century, several things remain at the core of the Garlic Festival: love of garlic, love of Gilroy and dedication to a vision.
For that, all Gilroyans owe a debt of gratitude to the men who started it all.
