AURORA — Aurora may be small, but the eastern Beaufort County town has a big draw.

This week, visitors from across the U.S., from across the world, will descend upon the town for the Aurora Fossil Festival. May 22-24, vendors, artists, rides, games, entertainment and more family fun will populate the streets of Aurora, but at the heart of long-running community festival is education, the physical clues providing insight into the earth’s past and the Aurora Fossil Museum.

“They come to see the fossils, to see the museum, to hear the talks. A lot of these people come for the events and for fossil hunting as well,” said Cynthia Crane, director of the museum. “People actually plan their vacations around it.”

Crane said they come to see fossil displays in the Aurora Community Center, tables upon tables of fossils provided by the North Carolina Fossil Club, Aurora Fossil Club, Smithsonian Museums, Southwest Florida Fossil Society and Virginia Museum of Natural History, to name a few. Visitors come to sift through mounds of material dug from the nearby phosphate mines, donated to the festival by PotashCorp-Aurora, in search of his or her own fossil to take home from the piles scattered about town. They come to hear paleontologists speak about the monster shark, the megalodon, that once roamed local waters. And they come to bid on fossils donated to the live auction that helps keep the Aurora Fossil Museum open to its 15,000 visitors each year, and the 15,000 more reached through the museum’s educational outreach.

“The more you see something, the more you interact with something, the more aware you are of it,” Crane said. “It’s a small museum with a lot of impact.”

The Fossil Festival is a joint venture between the museum and the Aurora Chamber of Commerce. Crane’s role in the festival is to highlight the educational component, calling on people to speak at the museum’s Learning Center, like Catalina Pimiento, a Florida graduate student, whose specialization is the megalodon; Victor J. Perez, a PhD candidate whose focus is the evolutionary aspects of the megalodon; and David Bohaska, museum specialist with the Smithsonian’s Department of Paleobiology and expert on Maryland’s Calvert Cliffs, a fossil-filled site with many geological similarities to this area.

The Smithsonian has  been involved in research that’s taken place in the Aurora area since the site’s discovery in the 1960s, which has led to documentation of Beaufort County’s contribution to world history. The partnership also has led to the Smithsonian’s continued presence, with displays and guest speakers, at the festival, according to Crane.

This year, the educational aspect of the festival isn’t confined to those who’ve made fossils their life’s work: the museum’s tent will feature representatives from many eastern North Carolina organizations like the Rocky Mount Children’s Museum, Beaufort/Hyde Partnership for Children, Historic Bath, Schiele Museum of Natural History in Gastonia; the Camp Bodie Ecolodge and Pamlico County Heritage Museum in Grantsboro, among many others.

Another draw is the live auction that will take place at 3 p.m. on Saturday. Hailed as the Fossil Museum’s largest fundraiser, the auction will feature items donated to the museum specifically for auction. Topping that list is a 3-foot fossil of a baby palm frond, found in the Eocene geologic formation in Wyoming, an area known for its fossil beds that span a 5-million year period dating to between 53.5 and 48.5 million years ago. After the live auction, a yearlong raffle will culminate with drawing the winner’s name of a megalodon tooth.

“This year’s fossil is from South Carolina. It’s six and a quarter inches long. It’s really heavy and beautiful. It’s a really beautiful tooth,” Crane said. “For $1, you have a chance.”

Starting with an opening ceremony on Friday night, followed by the Little Miss and Mister Fossil Contest, ending with a church service and gospel music, the Aurora Fossil Festival packs plenty of education and fun into the weekend, according to Crane.

“Everybody should just come out and see for themselves. I’m guaranteeing everybody will have a great time: all the great food, people running around; all the activity and energy. It’ll be fun,” she said.

For more information about festival events, visit the Aurora Fossil Festival Facebook page at www.facebook.com/Auroraff.