|
Hometown Days: Celebration begins!
by Jerry Fleagle, Hoover Presidential Found · Op-Ed · August 04, 2016
Anyone that has lived in West Branch more than a year knows what the first weekend in August is: Hoover’s Hometown Days!
It is a select group of cities (44) that can stake a claim to being the hometown of a U.S. President. That’s why the name of West Branch’s hometown celebration came to be.
Always close to Herbert Hoover’s birthday (that’s August 10 EVERY YEAR!) the Hoover Presidential Foundation’s goal is to honor Herbert Hoover’s memory, and remind everyone how a small town Iowa boy became the leader of the free world.
President Hoover was very adaptive to change, and, like any successful endeavor, the Foundation is making a couple of changes during Hoover’s Hometown Days this year.
A few years ago the Foundation moved the Life Celebration (then called the Ceremony of Life) from the Hoover Gravesite to the stage in front of the Library-Museum. August can be unbearably hot and humid, and moving the celebration from a location that had little shade to the front lawn of the Library made a lot of sense. In the last couple of years, we have lost several big trees on the Library lawn, and this year we have opted to move the Life Celebration to the Yellow House (foundation office) lawn, where Foundation members have enjoyed a picnic the past few years.
This year, we have our Foundation Picnic at noon, which is free for Foundation members and $10 for future members (remember, I am always the optimist!). Racing Herbie, of the Washington Nationals Racing Presidents, will be at the picnic for pictures, so be sure to stop and get a selfie with Racing Herbie!
Please come! If you haven’t RSVP’d, please call us at 643-5327 and reserve a spot by Friday noon.
And if you are not hungry, please come up to the lawn a little before 1 p.m. (bring a lawn chair if you can, as we will have limited number of extra chairs), and join us for this year’s Hoover Life Celebration, with featured speaker Stewart McLaurin of the White House Historical Association. The Accafellas will perform, and we will have Hoover birthday cake for all, whether you come to the picnic or not!
The other change is our new, expanded Youth Hooverball Tournament, located on the Village Green on Friday from 4-6PM. We had over 40 youth come to Hooverball camp last week, and this is a great way for youth to use adapted Hooverball rules, learn the sport, get a great workout, and have some fun!
New to our 29th Annual Hooverball Championships is an affiliation with the Iowa Games. Hooverball is an official Iowa Games sport, and the winners will receive some very nice medals, along with prize money and the all important bragging rights for another year!
We hope you catch “Racing Herbie” in the Mayor’s Parade (no word on if he is running in the Fergalicious Races!). Several Hoover family members are back this week, and will be in the parade as well as at the Picnic and around town afterwards.
Wondered what all the noise is about STEM education? Visit the Hoover Presidential Library-Museum Saturday, and they have a family price of $10 to tour the Museum, and will have many STEM activities spread throughout the galleries. The Library-Museum held STEM Days on Thursdays this past spring, and often had 300 plus kids attend each day. Come see what the excitement is about!
Last, congrats go to the Hoover Historic Site, Supt. Pete Swisher and his staff for maintaining one of only two National Parks in Iowa. The National Park Service is celebrating their centennial this year, and we are all fortunate to have a Park such as this for the size community we live in.
Indeed, we do have a great community. Nothing is perfect, but we have a lot going for us. And this is the perfect weekend to show the many visitors we’ll have what we get to experience every day!
Jerry Fleagle is the executive director of the Hoover Presidential Foundation. You may reach him at 319-643-5327 or JFleagle@hooverpf.org.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
