Race Fest group appreciates support

Editor:

On behalf of the Carroll County Chamber of Commerce and Carroll County Tourism, we would like to thank everyone who has helped organize and plan our Race Fest 2011. 

A lot of hard work has gone on behind the scenes by a lot of people to make this a success!  We would especially like to thank Lisa Brown, manager of Walmart, for her contribution of the flowers and planting of them out by Interstate 71. Walmart also donated more than $3000 to downtown for beautification for the event, as well as donated the five banners around town welcoming race fans to Carroll County.

Thank you to Jeremy Chowning, who has watered these flowers regularly, and to DJ Carroll, owner of Easy Pro Property Services, for donating his time and service by mowing the median where the flowers are planted.  Also, thank you to John Royse and his associates at Kroger, who have been helpful and involved in our committee, and have donated two banners that they will place on their property, pointing people towards our downtown Race Fest. 

Special thanks to Jimmy Supplee, for his help and support on our committee and introducing us to the directors of Kentucky Speedway. Without him, we wouldn’t have gained the access we had early on.  He introduced us to Jesse Harris, whom we like to think of as our own marketing representative from Kentucky Speedway. He fell in love with the town and helped us in many ways. 

To Herb Kinman and Jason Stephenson, thank you for sponsoring the bands for our event and for Kinman Chevrolet for letting us use their golf carts.Also thank you to Mayor Gene McMurry and Judge-Executive Harold “Shorty” Tomlinson, who were instrumental in improving the appearance of Carrollton with new banners, checkered flags, hanging our banners and monetary support. 

Many thanks to Sam Burgess and Deborah Garrett, who helped us organize and plan the festival downtown and to the Carrollton Main Street Program.  To the Carroll County Tobacco Festival for letting us use its stage;  Kentucky Kruizers for coming down and setting up the “tunes” and bringing some of their cars;  WKID-FM for doing a live remote; and  The News-Democrat for its help with the festival and the creation of the fan guide for all the race fans. Thank you to the chamber and tourism as well for their monetary contributions to the event and the volunteer hours by our members. The list goes on and on. If we forgot to mention your name, please know we could not have done this without everyone working together. 

This is our first year of doing this, and it has definitely been a learning experience. Hopefully we can all learn from our successes and failures and make this a regular event that is a big success.

Rhonda Crutcher, Bret Calhoun and Rhonda Welch