Festivals Are Fun!! I love the spring and the fall, those are the seasons when communities “show their stuff”

(This column presents a conservative viewpoint about items of interest in our community and our lives. Focus is on items impacting your pocket book, your personal freedoms, and your rights. I hope you will read the column regularly and it occasionally influences your opinions and actions.)


This week Jackson County held the first annual “Marianna Day Fall Festival”, which highlighted a meaningful moment in the history of the city, and an evening of entertaining “Bluegrass”, foot stomping music. Since I was on the organizing and planning committee for this event, I saw it take shape from a concept to a weekend filled with events and fun for approximately 2000 visitors and citizens. Not bad for the first year of an event which will surely grow in fame and participation.

In my opinion, community festivals are great! They pull together the best the community has to offer, create a day of fun and entertainment for locals and visitors, and generate interest and retail business for the area.

The panhandle is full of fun filled annual festivals and events, many of which I look forward to attending each year. Among these are the Apalachicola Seafood Festival, The St. George Island Auction and Chili Cook-off, The Panama City Seafood Festival, The Graceville Harvest Festival, The Pork and Paint Spring Festival in Marianna, The Peanut Festival in Dothan, and of course, the Possum Festival in Wausau. Now we can add the Marianna Day Fall Festival to our list.

In order to be really meaningful, each event must have a theme or themes which draw the crowd and help create the excitement. Our new Fall Festival has two very good themes, (1) Reliving a meaningful moment of our history, and (2) Assembling some of the best “Bluegrass” musicians in the southeast to entertain us.

I am especially pleased to realize that over 700 of our local students had the opportunity to learn first hand about life during the Civil War era through the “living history” exhibits on Friday. I also found it thrilling to see the ‘Battle of Marianna” re-enacted by soldiers in uniforms of the day….on the very site where the battle raged many years ago. We stood where lives were lost defending Marianna, and replayed the event.

If you missed it this year, you need to be sure and come next year. Planning for the next fall festival will begin next week.

Rudiments: Odds and Ends Worth Mentioning-

♦ As noted in last weeks issue, a local businessman, Thomas Bower is enlisting Marianna businesses to join in a petition requesting the Marianna City Commissioners to modify the existing city sign ordinances. They feel the existing rules are anti-business in design and enforcement. I support Mr. Bower in his effort.

♦ Hooray! Common sense and justice prevailed in Santa Rosa County where two coaches/teachers at Pace High were being prosecuted at the request of the ACLU for daring to say a prayer at a fund raising banquet. The judge threw out the charges, stating there was no “intent” to contempt the court. I applaud those local citizens, including two church Sunday school groups, who through the drive initiated by the “Tea Party”, Concerned American Patriots, gave almost $2500 to the “Right to Pray” defense fund for those teachers to use in fighting the ACLU.

♦ I believe it is time for us all to stand up and stop these inane “rules” which have been created to stifle our religious freedoms and our freedoms of expression through the courts by the ACLU. First, it is time to reassert the concept that the wishes of the Majority overrules the wishes of the few. Second, the right to have non-denominational prayers at school functions and even in the classrooms should be restored. Courts will react to public pressure….we need to begin to rigorously apply that pressure! Vote only for those who feel the same as we do, and are willing to sponsor bills for this goal.

♦ “The greatest tyrannies are always perpetuated in the name of the noblest causes” – Thomas Paine





Note: The opinions stated in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Hatcher Publications.