Getting Public Input for Harrodsburg’s 250th
Volunteers sign up for committees to help organize Harrodsburg’s 250th anniversary at last week’s public meeting.
Planning Begins For Big Bash In 2024
Robert Moore
Herald Staff
rmoore@harrodsburgherald.com
In 2024, Harrodsburg will celebrate the 250th anniversary of its founding. Five years may seem like a long way off, but it’s not a lot of time to plan a party as big as a 250th birthday.
“We’re going to bring the nation and the state here,” said Mayor Art Freeman.
Last week, Freeman introduced the leaders of the committee that’s organizing the celebration to the public at the Lions Park Community Center.
Tony Dunbar, Lois Mateus and Leslie Bosse wanted two things Thursday night: they wanted the public’s ideas and they wanted their time.
Dunbar likened the effort to put on the semiquincentennial celebration to the effort made by James Harrod in creating Harrodsburg.
“He had a mission. He was looking to create a settlement,” Dunbar said. “We have a mission too.”
That mission is to plan and orchestrate a yearlong celebration of Harrodsburg’s history.
“It’s going capture our heritage. It’s going to capture our history. It’s going to capture our prestige,” Dunbar said.
But he said organizers couldn’t do it all themselves, and he asked for the public’s ideas. Dunbar said the only way it could work was for the entire community—business, industry, government and churches and the people of Mercer County—to work together. In addition to asking for suggestions, they placed sign-in sheets for the audience to volunteer to belong to six committees, each one charged with a different area.
Organizers say the events will center on the Mercer County Fair and Horse Show, which is the oldest continuous county fair in the nation.
The celebration will actually start at the county fair in 2023 and run through the year, culminating with the anniversary on June 15-16, 2024.
For more information, or to volunteer, contact the organizers at harrodsburg250th@gmail.com.
Find the rest of the story on page 1A of this week’s issue of the Harrodsburg Herald or click here to to subscribe.
