The 43rd Annual Old Fashioned Trading Days festival is almost upon us. It takes place Thursday through Saturday in downtown Williamsburg.
Back when we had an office in Williamsburg, for me, one of the best parts of Old Fashioned Trading Day was being able to step out of my office, walk a few feet and have lots of choices in terms of places to eat for lunch. Back then the options in Williamsburg were much more limited.
The Whitley County Cattlemen’s Association is always one of my “go to” places to eat at these local festivals. They have an efficient set up where the food basically goes from the freezer to the grill to the plate in many cases. It is fresh. It is good. In addition to the ribeye sandwiches they also have pretty good burgers.
A barbecue sandwich and soup beans is one of my favorite combinations at these festivals, if I can find it. The barbeque is usually easy to find, but the soup beans can be a little harder to come by. I am usually not successful finding this food combinations at NIBROC, but it is usually getable at Old Fashioned Trading Days. Usually, I can find at least one church selling soup beans and corn bread.
The professional food vendors, which travel around setting up at most of these festivals all over the state, are alright, but I typically try to find food vendors with local connections, such as churches and school groups. This way the money they raise usually goes a good cause, and I like to try and keep those funds local, if possible.
Williamsburg Tourism Director Alvin Sharpe tells me all the vendor spots are sold out for this year’s festival so there should be plenty of things to check out ranging from jewelry and crafts to floral wreath and clothing.
It looks like they have some good music lined up each evening.
While I am not typically big on bluegrass music, I do like three of the four acts slated to perform Friday on Stage One at Bill Woods Park. Straight Creek, Virgil Bowlin and Tidal Wave Road all have a good sound. I am unfamiliar with the fourth band, Michael Prewitt and Crunchgrass Supreme.
Organizers have booked two really good bands to headline Stage Two at the Green Space on Main for Friday and Saturday evening.
County Wide is very popular regional band, which always draws a crowd. I personally enjoy hearing them play. I suspect many people around here are familiar with hearing them play. They are slated to perform at approximately 8 p.m. on Friday.
Paint Creek headlines Stage Two at approximately 8 p.m. Saturday. This band is fronted by brothers Eric and Alex Poore, who you might have guessed are from Paint Creek in Whitley County. I think they are based out of Lexington these days. Singing is in their blood. Their uncle is Gerald Mullins, who is a well-known minister and singer in Whitley County.
If you get the chance, you might want to head down to Williamsburg over the next few days and eat a ribeye steak sandwich, have a funnel cake for dessert, check out some crafts and listen to some good music.
Now to touch upon a topic brought up at a special called Corbin Independent Board of Education meeting Thursday. A couple of people in the audience criticized the board for not doing more to notify people about its meetings, and particularly special called meetings beside doing the minimum required by law. Among the things suggested was putting notices about meetings, especially special called meetings, on the district Facebook page, and using the district’s parental notification app, ParentSquare, to send out notices about meetings
Board Chairwoman Carcille Burchette and Board Member Kim Croley thanked the audience members for bringing this to the board’s attention. Croley the district is also working to update its website so notices about meetings and other events can be posted there.
Improving public notices about governmental meetings is actually a very good idea, which all our local governmental entities should think about doing. They typically do a good job of following the letter of the law and notify media outlets 24 hours before a meeting and usually post a notice about the meeting on the front door of the building where the meeting will be held or someplace like this. Most of our major governmental agencies have official Facebook pages and alert systems, which can be used to send out notifications by text or e-mail about things, such as waterline breaks for instance.
It would be good to see these governmental entities start sending out notices about their planned meetings on these communications platforms, if they are not already doing so. The notices won’t get to everyone, who might be interested in attending, but the notices would reach a lot of people and, perhaps, even most people.
Would this result in more people attending governmental meetings? Maybe.
Truth be told, a few more people would probably show up to complain about this or that, but I would not expect to see more than a handful do so at most meetings. Most people have never been to a governmental meeting in their lives, unless maybe their kid was being honored by the school board for something. Nearly all of them take off as soon as their kid gets their recognition.
Most people choose not to attend governmental meetings and observe what their government does firsthand. They have the right to do so though. Sending out more governmental notices about meetings and broadcasting those meetings, either live or via a video recording over the Internet, would be excellent steps towards improved governmental transparency and accountability. I can think of only a handful doing so locally.
