June in Moore County
From Tims Ford afternoons to candy shops and sweet tea, Lynchburg has plenty to enjoy and remember
3:56 p.m. May 30, 2026
DUANE CROSS
MCO Publisher•Editor
By the time June gets to Moore County, nobody needs a calendar to tell them summer is here.
The Square is hot by lunchtime. The kids are out of school and already running through snacks, sunscreen, and clean towels faster than anybody can keep up. Somewhere along the road, a boat is being hauled toward Tims Ford, a cooler is sliding around in the back of a truck, and somebody is already asking where everybody wants to eat afterward.
June shows up with lake days, candy counters, and sweating glasses of sweet tea. It gives folks an excuse to get outside, linger a little longer in town, and enjoy the sort of simple summer day that does not need much planning to turn out right.
Lake Water, Candy, and Iced Tea
National Great Outdoors Month is an easy one for Moore County and its neighbors to celebrate.
Tims Ford State Park is close enough to feel like part of home and far enough away to make an afternoon there feel like a small escape. Some folks go for the boat ramp. Some go with fishing poles. Others are content with a picnic, a trail walk, or a shady spot where the breeze off the water cuts the heat for a while.
There is no wrong way to do a June afternoon at the lake, so long as somebody remembers the sunscreen and nobody expects the children to come home dry.
June is National Candy Month, and Lynchburg has that one covered.
At Lullette’s Sweet Shop and Bakery, it is hard to walk past the chocolates, pastries, and old-fashioned candy without deciding you have earned something. Sweet Southern Spirit brings Tennessee spirits into its candies and cakes. Lynchburg Cake and Candy Co. adds its own whiskey-country favorites, including Lynchburg Whiskey Cake, Whiskey Balls, and praline pecans.
Around here, a candy run does not have to be part of a special occasion. It can be the occasion.
You can take something home for later. You can buy enough to share. You can tell yourself the bag on the passenger seat will make it all the way home unopened.
Some plans are better than others.
Then there is National Iced Tea Month, which feels less like an observance and more like a basic June necessity.
After a walk around the Square, a stop at the shops, or an afternoon out toward the lake, a cold glass of sweet tea at one of Lynchburg’s restaurants just makes sense. The glass ought to be full of ice. The tea ought to be sweet enough that nobody has to ask. And the first few swallows ought to come before much conversation does.
That is not being rude. That is heat management.
For the Men Who Show Up
Father’s Day, which falls on Sunday, June 21, fits naturally into all of it. A lake outing. A meal in town. A bag of candy brought home for a dad or grandfather who insists he does not need anything but somehow manages to finish it anyway.
The day belongs to fathers, grandfathers, stepfathers, and the men who filled the role when somebody needed them to. The ones who sat in the bleachers, drove the extra miles, fixed what they could, worried quietly, and made sure somebody else had what they needed first.
June is also National Men’s Health Month, and that one deserves more than a passing nod. Men can be stubborn about a lot of things, especially going to the doctor. They will check the oil, patch the roof, mow in weather nobody ought to be mowing in, and tell everybody else to take care of themselves.
Somebody who loves him has probably already told him to make that appointment. June is as good a time as any to finally listen.
Days that Çhanged Lives
June carries some serious history, too.
On June 12, Loving Day marks the anniversary of the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia. Richard and Mildred Loving were married and in love, but Virginia law made their marriage illegal because he was white and she was Black and Native American. The court’s ruling struck down laws banning interracial marriage across the country.
Seven days later, on June 19, the nation observes Juneteenth, commemorating the day in 1865 when Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced that enslaved people there were free – more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
June is also Pride Month, honoring the LGBTQ+ community and remembering the Stonewall Uprising of June 1969, a defining moment in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights and recognition.
They are separate histories, each with its own pain and its own meaning. Still, all three are reminders that ordinary things many people take for granted – marrying the person you love, living free, being able to stand in the world as yourself – once had to be fought for.
That is June in Moore County: a month wide enough for the easy pleasures and the days that ask us to stop and remember.
There is room for a boat ride at Tims Ford, a bag of candy from a Lynchburg shop, and a cold tea glass leaving a wet ring on the table.
There is room, too, to remember the people who had to fight for love, freedom, and a place to belong.
That is plenty for one June.