McAlester getting ready for annual Italian festival

(McAlester-AP) -- Volunteers are hard at work making meatballs and cooking spaghetti sauce for the 33rd annual Italian Festival in McAlester. <br><br>Some people prepared and cooked 900 pounds of meatballs

Wednesday, May 7th 2003, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

(McAlester-AP) -- Volunteers are hard at work making meatballs and cooking spaghetti sauce for the 33rd annual Italian Festival in McAlester.

Some people prepared and cooked 900 pounds of meatballs while former state Representative Lloyd Fields cooked 80 gallons of spaghetti sauce.

Fields says he's been cooking the sauce since 1984 and is the only person with the recipe.

But the 80 gallons of sauce cooked Saturday won't last long at the festival. Fields says 320 gallons were used last year.

Last year, one-thousand pounds of meatballs, 900 pounds of sausages, 800 loaves of bread and one-thousand salads were prepared for the two-day festival.

The event also includes arts and crafts, a car show, a petting zoo and Italian games.

This year's festival is May 24th and 25th.