For over a year, Michelle Schnapp has been planning for an event that will help Montgomery County residents appreciate and understand goats.

That event will come on Nov. 2 as the Missouri Goat Festival comes to the Montgomery County Fairgrounds. The event will run from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and will have live music, vendors and fun activities for people – and goats, of course – of all ages.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Schnapp, who lives outside Montgomery City. “But it doesn’t seem like enough time to get everything done. I should have started planning two years ago.”

Schnapp has been raising goats for 20 years. She owns a 30-acre farm that has 26 goats and is an owner of the Sassy Nanny Raw Milk Dairy, which makes goat’s milk. She also conducted a monthly seminar called Goat Talk at the Montgomery City Public Library in which she talks with community residents about the best ways to raise a goat.

Schnapp said she is excited that she will get to share her passion for goats to county residents by having the goat festival.

“Everybody seems to be pretty excited,” Schnapp said. “I think that it meant a lot for us to keep it here in Montgomery City to bring revenue to the town. We’re hoping that it will keep growing year after year. Then, it will keep bringing more money and more people to Montgomery during that time. Not only will the festival thrive, but the town will also.”

Ruby Leigh, Grandma Glee, Posey Hill and Vernon Kohlbusch will provide the entertainment at the Missouri Goat Festival. Leigh and Posey Hill perform in the morning and afternoon sessions.

Leigh is a Missouri native who finished second in “The Voice” TV show.

“We were very lucky to get Ruby before she really became famous before everybody knew her,” Schnapp said. “So we were able to snag her right away.”

Posey Hill is a family band from Arkansas that consists of three sisters and plays Americana, folk and country music. Schnapp said she and her husband Tim saw the group perform in Arkansas.

“They were amazing,” Schnapp said. “They literally stopped me on my tracks and I told Tim that I need to get their name. They were really good.”

Grandma Glee, which does children’s magic, balloons and dancing, will perform at the kids corner at the festival. The kids corner will also have a coloring contest as well as the Hunt the Goat contest in which participants get a chance to keep a goat if they find one.

Schnapp, who also owns Mimi’s Shaved Ice and Fresh Squeezed Lemonade in Montgomery City, came up with the idea of bringing a goat festival to Montgomery County after attending one in Arkansas.

“I had wanted to go there for years and years,” Schnapp said. “Then, my husband made it happen. So we went down last year in October. We went to the festival and I loved it. I thought, ‘This is pretty great.’ When we got there, there were vendors with a few goat things and stuff like that. The only thing they did was they had a goat costume contest and a goat parade. Those were basically the only two really goat related things. I thought I could do this and I want to do this in Missouri because we had goats for over 20 years.”

Schnapp said at the Missouri Goat Festival, she wants patrons to learn how to milk goats, how to make soap and how to make cheese.

“We want people to know that there are so many ways to utilize this little animal,” Schnapp said. “It makes them a smart stock to have and raise.”

Schnapp got permission to hold the festival at the Fairgrounds after attending a meeting with the Fair Board.

“That night, when we were presenting it to them, they said that’s great and it sounds good, but come back with us with an agenda,” Schnapp said. “I said, ‘That’s OK, guys. I have one right here.’ So then they passed it around and we got it approved that night, which was huge because with something like this, your vendors are already booked a year out. So if you want any amount of vendors, you have to get them right away. There’s no waiting until the last minute.”

For more information about the festival, go to missourigoatfestival.com.