Woodville — Pull out your huntin’ gear and carvin’ wood. It’s time for the first-annual Woodville Deer and Wildlife Festival.

The festival, which runs 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Oct. 11 around Woodville’s Courthouse Square, will showcase the community’s cultural heritage by celebrating the arts in an event hosted by the Woodville/Wilkinson County Main Street Association.

Wildlife chefs are encouraged to participate in a cook-off, with competitions is venison, fowl, wild hog and miscellaneous. The entry fee is $75 per team, and the winner of the venison contest will go on to compete in the Port Gibson Heritage Festival’s cook-off.

Fifteen teams have entered so far — one featuring alligator sauce piquante.

Local artists, bowl carvers, wood carvers, wooden spoon makers, basket weavers, quilters and taxidermists will also be on hand to showcase their talents.

Main Street Association Manager Polly Rosenblatt said she expects the event to be well attended and said many out-of-state hunters are expected to come.

A billboard was placed on I-12 in Holden, La., and radio station 95 Country will cover the event.

“It’s our inaugural year. I used to say it was our first year, but then I read that word, inaugural, and I thought, ‘You know, that’s beautiful,’” Rosenblatt said. “If there are any proceeds, they will go to match the Mississisppi Arts Commission project grant we received.”

Tickets are $3, and children under 2 get in free.

Easy Eddie and the Party Rockers will play from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m., and from 4 to 6 p.m. the Veal Brothers Gospel Group will perform.

A centerpiece of the festival is a museum exhibit of collected photographs of hunters and their game from around the Wilkinson County area. Some of the photographs are from the early 20th Century.

“It’s a pictorial history,” Rosenblatt said. “People have submitted them over the past few months, and we have enlarged them and mounted them. They are fabulous, if I do say so.”

Area school children will read stories about wildlife and nature, and children’s activities are available as well. The Mississippi Museum of Natural science will also exhibit animals indigenous to the area.

Local vendors will sell unique goods. The festival is sponsored by United Mississippi Bank, the Mississippi Arts Commission and Coca-Cola.