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Cherry-to-Cherry Craze: Chamber Chief Revels in Duties

Posted on: Thursday, 23 March 2006, 09:01 CST

By Liz Fabian, The Macon Telegraph, Ga.

Mar. 23--With a name like Chip Cherry, it was only a matter of time before the Greater Macon Chamber of Commerce president was tapped to lead the festival that shares his name.

Cherry, a Portsmouth, Va., native who arrived in Macon to lead the chamber in 2001, is the 2006 Cherry Blossom Festival chairman.

It says so on the pink blossom-emblazoned front and back windows of his silver Ford Expedition.

In the first four days of the festival, Cherry, 46, was a pink blur as he criss-crossed town in his pink jacket to catch 27 different events.

He's welcomed international dignitaries at the opening ceremonies, greeted guests at the ball, eaten pink pancakes at the park, attended the Havdalah Ceremony at the close of Sabbath at Congregation Sha'areay Israel, caught the fireworks at Macon Thunder, waved from the parade float and opened up Third Street Park for free ice cream consumption.

So far, so good, he said Tuesday afternoon.

He did candidly disclose that he did make a big splash at one of his first official pre-festival duties.

At a luncheon honoring the senior queen and princess, he knocked over a glass of ice tea, soaking the princess' sash.

"So far, I haven't screwed up anything too much," Cherry said jokingly.

This week is far from business as usual for Cherry.

He's balancing his job at the chamber and the Macon Economic Development Commission while chairing the festival and working on his MBA at Mercer University.

"Some days it seems pretty overwhelming," said Cherry, who still manages to keep nearly a 3.7 grade point average in the graduate course that requires him to run a fictitious company with others on his team.

Multi-tasking is something Cherry began to master at North Carolina Wesleyan College in Rocky Mount, N.C.

While serving as student government president, managing the bike racing team and taking pictures for the school, he took on an internship at the Rocky Mount Area Chamber of Commerce.

In a matter of months, Cherry outgrew the intern title and signed on as manager of business and community development.

A few years later, Cherry's boss encouraged him to apply for a chamber president's job in Fredericksburg, Va.

"He thought it would be a good experience for me to interview," Cherry said. "But when I got the job, he wasn't too happy."

After eight years in Fredericksburg, Cherry became president of the chamber in Greenville, N.C., where he stayed for eight years before coming to Macon.

"The chamber work seemed to be a natural fit for me," Cherry said. "Working with the best people, brightest minds and helping a community move forward and make it a better place."

Across from the desk in Cherry's office at the chamber hangs a print of an old general store complete with a potbelly stove.

It reminds him of his grandfather's store near Chatham, where Cherry's mother grew up in the hills of western Virginia.

His grandfather on the Cherry side ran a business cleaning rugs and Cherry's father opened Dixie D Carpets in 1972 to coincide with the wall-to-wall craze.

With that spirit of entrepreneurship in his genes, Chip Cherry launched Chip's Firewood when he was 15 years old.

It's experience he draws on when dealing with business owners.

"I've been there when my mom and dad would stay awake at night," Cherry said. "Those pressures are kind of hard to appreciate unless you've lived it or lived with it."

Also hanging on the wall in Cherry's office is a "My Hero" tribute in crayon from his son, which reads, "My dad finds time in his busy schedule to play baseball with me. He even helps his workers in lots of tight situations."

Cherry said he's proud of his children -- son Trey, 18 and daughter, Julia, 13.

His wife, Betty, is his No. 1 partner, he said.

"I could not do what I do if it weren't for her," said Cherry of the "love of his life."

Through all the festivities, she's been at his side or in the audience.

When asked about his favorite festival events, Cherry pauses.

"I'm not so much caught up in the pomp and circumstance, the flashy stuff," Cherry said. "People of all economic levels coming together, that's fun."

Recognizing the volunteers at the annual awards luncheon is his main event, he said.

He enjoys the "Cherry Blossom Cathedral," the interdenominational worship service Sunday morning at Third Street Park.

The fishing rodeo, which pairs disadvantaged youngsters with firefighters at the river, is also high on his list.

For Cherry, the festival has significant meaning beneath its pink roots.

"What's really special about it is, we are celebrating a time of year, spring, that has symbolism of rebirth," Cherry said. "We celebrate with a tree from another country that we once had hostilities with. That's powerful stuff."

Macon shines with its appreciation of other cultures in a part of the country known for its intolerance not long ago, he said.

"This year, we're celebrating Israel in an area dominated by Protestant religion. I think that's a big step," he said. "The fact we can appreciate and not be threatened by it. It makes you proud to be from Macon and Middle Georgia."

Festival founder Carolyn Crayton said she's proud of Cherry for his hard work promoting Macon.

"I think he's wonderful and I love his name," Crayton said. "It's most appropriate he was made to be chair."

Cherry Blossom Festival CEO Wright Tilley said Cherry's business contacts have proved invaluable to the festival.

He's a diplomat who knows how to make suggestions but leaves the execution of changes to the staff, Tilley said.

"Chip and I get along very well," Tilley said. "He puts people at ease when they meet him. As a festival chairman, he's been very visible shaking hands, greeting people and welcoming them."

And while Cherry has traveled to the Tournament of Roses in Pasadena, Calif., and will take cherry blossom trinkents when he visits Japan in June, there's one more stop he'd like to make to represent the festival.

"I'd like to visit the Cherry Festival (in Traverse City, Mich.)," he said. "I could be Chip Cherry from the Cherry Blossom Festival at the Cherry Festival. That would be three cherries in there."

To contact Liz Fabian, call 744-4303 or e-mail lfabian@macontel.com [mailto:lfabian@macontel.com].

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Macon Telegraph, Ga.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Macon Telegraph (Macon, Ga.)

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