BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. (WLOX) - One of the longest-running Fourth of July Coast Life traditions continues this week in Bay St. Louis.
“I couldn’t live anywhere else, I love Bay St. Louis,” Jimmy Osbourn said.
A big reason why Bay St. Louis is such a great place for Jimmy Osbourn to live comes around every Fourth of July when the grounds of Our Lady of the Gulf turn into the home of the OLG Crab Fest.
“The best food you’ll ever put in your mouth is cooked right out there by local people,” Osbourn said.
Osbourn helps bring all the food and people together.
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“You could say I was ‘King Crab,’ that’s what a lot of people around here call me,” Osbourn said.
This will be the 40th Crab Fest and Osbourn has been a part of it for more than 30 of those years.
“It started out stirring a pot and grew from there,” Osbourn said.
It takes almost a full year of work in advance to get the booths ready to host thousands of people over a three-day period.
“We’ll have close to 60 to 70,000 people come through the grounds,” Osbourn said.
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During the festival, many of those people will spill out into the streets of Bay St. Louis. Karen Grumbine always makes sure her business Baytique is open on the Fourth of July.
“It brings people in from all over, they love the food, they have a good time listening to the music, drinking, and eating,” Grumbine said. “Then they come over here, cool off, and shop.”
To pull off feeding and entertaining thousands of people takes a team effort from across the community.
“Mayor Mike Favre is our gumbo expert, and all that gumbo is made from scratch,” Osbourn said.
Osbourn calls Favre’s gumbo the best he’s ever had. The gumbo, crabs, and other seafood on the Fourth of July is a tradition built by years of hard work started by Joe Monti and continues today.
“Joe’s still part of the festival, he’s here every year,” Osbourn said. “I lean hard on him because he’s been here all 40 years. It’s his baby, I’m just rocking it for him right now.”
The Crab Fest will keep rocking on each summer as long as people like Osbourn stay committed to making it happen.
“It’s always been fun,” Osbourn said. “As people get older, they’re not always able to stay. I’m sure that day will come for me. I hope it doesn’t come too soon though.”
The OLG Crab Fest gets started on Thursday and goes through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m., with music all three days.
For more information, visit Our Lady of the Gulf’s website.
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