W’burg, Jellico Christmas parades set this weekend

Just a reminder that the 2022 City of Williamsburg Feels Like Home Christmas in a Small Town Parade is slated for Saturday evening on Main Street, and the Jellico Christmas Parade is scheduled for 2 p.m. Sunday.

Mark White is Editor of The News Journal.

A lot of work goes into the planning of community events, such as parades, as well as work put into designing and making floats for such an occasion.

A few years back, Williamsburg started offering cash prizes for floats in three categories, church, business and school in an effort to increase the number of participants, and it typically works.

First place winners in each of the three categories get $150, second place gets $100, and third place gets $50.

In an effort to get more music in the parade, they offer $200 for school bands and school choirs to participate.

The end result is usually a pretty good parade that is fun to watch.

Afterwards, the town ornament exchange takes place in Bill Woods Park. The ornament exchange is much as it sounds. Bring an ornament and place it in a brown paper bag at the exchange table, and then take another ornament.

Another thing taking place at Bill Woods Park after the parade is the decorating for the Memorial Tree. This involves people bringing ornaments in memory of someone that they lost and placing them on the tree. The ornaments are then saved for decoration of the tree in future years.

Both of these things are a nice annual tradition in Williamsburg.

Also, after the parade there will be free hot chocolate and cider, and the winners will be announced for the annual Christmas decorating contest.

While there is no cash prize in the decorating contest winners get something perhaps more important, which are bragging rights until next Christmas.

While I haven’t been down to it in a few years, the Jellico Christmas Parade has always been good every year that I have attended it, and typically draws a lot of participants.

Here’s hoping for good weather for both events this coming weekend.

Now to switch gears and talk about a few other topics before I conclude this column.

• I manned the fort at the News Journal office Friday night and listened to the Corbin vs. Boyle County state championship football playoff game on the radio while Trevor Sherman sent me game updates for social media.

This was a state championship game that certainly lived up to the hype, which isn’t always the case. It could have gone either way especially after a Jacob Baker interception near mid-field with 5:30 to go in the game and the Hounds down by six points. Alas, the comeback came up short.

The Redhounds should be proud of their performance though. They left it all out on the field.

• Ronnie Bowling and Jeff Barnett do a great job announcing for the Corbin High School football games on WCTT. My only critique is that a short postgame show would be a nice addition to the broadcast next season.

Give us a game summary and statistics. Maybe get the coach up into the broadcast booth after the game or send somebody down onto the field to interview him.

From a spectator’s perspective, this would be a great addition to an already good broadcast.

• Just a reminder that not everyone is as fortunate this Christmas season as some of us. There are a lot of great local charities out there that work to make Christmas better for the less fortunate, especially children.

If you can donate to some of the many local worthy causes here in our community, then please do so this holiday season.