![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/strawberry-festival-2.webp?resize=932%2C524&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n“We’re always giving them good country cooking. We treat them the way they want to be treated,” said Newsome. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But as much as the stars like big helpings of shortcake, their managers wanted more from the decades-old stage. So, recently, it came tumbling down. Much larger stadium sound and light grids will replace it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“If you’re going to get the good acts, you got to have a good facility”, said Newsome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That old stage holds lots of memories for Newsome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I remember Garth Brooks,” he said. “Somebody who says how great the Strawberry Festival is everywhere she goes is Reba,” he muses. “She says \u2018I feel at home.\u2019”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Newsome’s been luring stars to Plant City for generations, and he never stops searching for the next act. Ask him who he would like to see on the new stage, the answer is easy: “We’ve been trying for 30 years to get Dolly Parton.” <\/p>\n\n\n But even if he doesn’t get Dolly, Newsome, who is 84 years old, said he feels blessed to be part of the festival. He said the thousands of volunteers are what makes the festival a success. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “It’s been fun. It’s been a big part of my life,” he said. “The good Lord has smiled on us greatly.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The annual\u00a0Plant City\u00a0Strawberry Festival may be a paradise for the sweet tooth, but it’s also music to the ears. Some of the biggest stars in country music have performed on… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"14","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMDRcL3N0cmF3YmVycnktZmVzdGl2YWwtMy53ZWJwP2ZpdD05MzIlMkM1MjQmc3NsPTEiLCJ0eHQiOiJTdHJhd2JlcnJ5IEZlc3RpdmFsIHJlcGxhY2luZyBkZWNhZGVzLW9sZCBzdGFnZSBhcyBjb3VudHJ5IHN0YXJzIGNvbnRpbnVlIHRvIGJyaW5nIHRhbGVudHMgdG8gUGxhbnQgQ2l0eSBTdHJhd2JlcnJ5IEZlc3RpdmFsIiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJoaWdod2F5IiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.C1-XlgzRiVh7HSivYfTwYBxeXk3_94mOBxkLdPjM-gsMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":55026,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/strawberry-festival-2.webp","type":"image\/webp"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[11273],"class_list":["post-55024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-strawberry-festival-replacing-decades-old-stage-as-country-stars-continue-to-bring-talents-to-plant-city-strawberry-festival"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55024"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55028,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55024\/revisions\/55028"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/strawberry-festival-1.webp?resize=932%2C524&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/strawberry-festival-3.webp?resize=932%2C524&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n