The tents are here!

Report from the Kansas Sampler Festival location in Concordia.

Susie Haver (local festival director) and I were at the 6:30 a.m. Optimist meeting this morning at Kristi's restaurant. Club members are great volunteers at the festival. Next was the 8:15 a.m. chamber meeting. Good to see friendly and eager faces. Tammy Britt, local co-director, ran the Chamber coffee.

I had a chance to slip over to the Orphan Train Museum. It's looking really good and the exhibits do a great job of telling the gripping story. Hope you get to see it.

KSF board member Ellen Morgan showed up this morning. She did projects all day in the office. WenDee was stationed at her computer working on Volunteer info sheets, day program, and tent layouts.

The Leavenworth County contingent, next year's host, doubled today. Bob and Jan Topping got here Sunday night. Keyta Kelly, Leavenworth Co. festival director, and daughter Kaitlin, got here early this afternoon. They came out to the site and then went to the office to work with WenDee.

Tents showed up at noon and by 4 p.m., all ten big tents were stretched out on their designated areas and poles were slammed into the ground. Tomorrow the tents will go up!

Susie and Tammy were working on odds and ends, phone calls, and final details. Tonight we had three volunteer training meetings.

Now, here's the most interesting news of all for those who will be coming to Concordia this weekend. Today was the opening of Heavy's, a bar and bbq/other things classy joint just a block off of 6th (main street) on Washington. What a great place!

We had coffee at the very cool coffee place this morning, Jitters. Bob and Jan ate at Zistro's, another neat place in town.

Concordia's Blade Empire came out today with a 40-page tab about the festival. It's terrific!

Salina Journal is coming out tomorrow.

That's the festival report for today.

We're working hard to ready the place to help the public "Get Kansas!"

KE #2 Marci Penner

p.s. Kansas Sampler Festival, May 2-3, Concordia's city park.
www.kansassamplerfestival.com.