The Corbin Tourism and Convention Commission recently sponsored its annual Burger Week, which has proven to be a success each year.
I’m all for honoring beef. I love a good steak and a good burger probably a little more so than the next guy.
However, I would love to see someone organize a Wing Week too.
Local restaurants could have a week-long special on wings. You could have a contest with two categories of winners like they do with the Williamsburg Chili Cookoff. You could have a judge’s choice award and a people’s choice award.
A secret panel of judges could anonymously go around to all the participating restaurants, sample the wings and vote. You could also let the public vote online for who their favorite was after sampling the goods at local restaurants.
This kind of reminds me of something the staff at the Eastern Progress did while I was in college at Eastern Kentucky University. One Saturday the paper paid for the wings and the staff went to a series of four or five restaurants sampling the wings before voting on what we thought were the best wings in Richmond. (In regard to drinks, it was BYOB as in Buy Your Own Beverage…LOL.)
We took pictures of the wings before eating them, which we ran as part of our full-page spread in the newspaper discussing wings. If memory serves me correctly, our headline for the story was the word wings, spelled out with chicken wings. It was a fun outing.
(For the record, no one got alcohol poisoning although I am sure there may have been some hangovers the next day…LOL.)
Some of the restaurants we ate at were Pacos, which was a Mexican place, Madison Garden Bar and Grill, which is a sports bar, Bananas Tavern and at least one or two more restaurants I believe.
Madison Garden is the only one of these restaurants still open as far as I know.
Last I saw a few years back, there was still a framed copy of our wings article on the wall there.
It was a delicious assignment.
Now for a few other random thoughts before I conclude this column.
- I am enjoying the baseball column, which John Curtis White (no relation) has been writing for the News Journal the past few weeks. The kid understands Major League Baseball, gets his statistics together to support his arguments and is a very articulate writer. (This already sets him apart from a few sports writers I have known over the years…LOL.) I cannot wait to see what he does when becomes an adult.
- Kudos to U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers for securing $2 million in federal funding to help pay for a parking garage for the Corbin Center, which is currently undergoing a renovation and large expansion. Once the project is complete, there will be a covered walkway between the Corbin Center and the TownePlace Suites/Fairfield Inn by Marriott, which held its ceremonial ribbon cutting early this year.
Hopefully, this will enable the Corbin Center to secure some small conventions and trade shows, which will bring more tourism to the area. Tourism is a good thing because tourists spend money.
They book local hotel rooms, eat at local restaurants, fill up at local gas stations, shop at local stores and visit local tourist attractions. A statistic I heard one time is every tourism dollar will turn over seven times in the local economy.
