Colonel Fest went great Saturday, big additions planned for next year

Wow! Organizers couldn’t have asked for much better day than they had Saturday for the Third Annual Colonel Fest celebration on Main Street in downtown Corbin.

Mark White is Editor of The News Journal.

I was downtown from about an hour prior to the festival’s start Saturday morning  until it ended about 6 p.m. Saturday evening and downtown was packed with people pretty much the whole time.

Numerous vendors turned out selling various crafts, clothing items, leather goods and so forth. There was tons of free stuff for children to do, including games, inflatables, face painting and so forth.

Several children turned out for the egg toss and ice cream eating contest among other events.

Perhaps the only disappointment that there weren’t more Colonel Harland Sanders impersonators at this year’s event.

Last year, there was five or six impersonators but this year only Colonel Maverick Broussard was in attendance to retain his title in the Colonel Sanders Look-A-Like Contest.

Corbin Tourism Director and Downtown Manager Maggy Monhollen and other organizers have turned this into a nice little festival that will be growing to two days next year.

I think Monhollen is right that it is time to grow the festival.

Among other additions to next year’s Colonel Fest will be the addition of the Sanders 10K Race. Previously, the 10K had been held in conjunction with the Sanders Half Marathon that organizers have decided to discontinue.

While I’m sad to see the half marathon go, I can’t really blame organizers for discontinuing it. I don’t think most people realize the amount of time and energy that goes into organizing just a 5K race. I have a little bit of insight into this as my wonderful wife, Cecelia, helped organize a 5K for several years to promote Sexual Assault Awareness month. Among her many other responsibilities is serving as victim’s services director at Cumberland River Behavioral Health.

At any rate for a 5K, you have to map out the race route, find a date, get a timer, find sponsors, get T-shirts designed and printed, find volunteers to help sign up participants on race day, get trophies and medals and find people to stand on street corners to direct people along the route among many other headaches.

I suspect that the time and effort to organize a race four times that long, like a half marathon, would be even worse.

I saw a lot of familiar faces at this year’s Colonel Fest, and I met a few new ones, including some descendants of KFC Founder Colonel Harland Sanders and his nephew, Lee Cummings, who founded Lee’s Famous Recipe in 1966.

As I suggested to them, perhaps descendants of Sanders and Cummings should organize a family reunion and what better place to do it than Corbin, which is home of the original Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant.

Construction on Corbin’s new farmer’s market pavilion is moving along well and this would be a great place to have the reunion as it is located across the street from Sanders Park. (FYI-the location was Monhollen’s suggestion.) Let me suggest serving both KFC and Lee’s chicken as a menu compromise.

(Hey, just a suggestion folks.)

Now to touch on a few other topics before I conclude this column.

• Congratulations to my friend, Whitley Circuit Court Clerk Gary Barton, on his recent induction into the Fifth District Lincoln Club Hall of Fame. The hall of fame is for those, who have made a significant contribution to Republican politics in this region of the state, and our Circuit Court Clerk of more than 20 years certainly fits that bill. (The only thing I can’t figure out is why Gary wasn’t already in this hall of fame.)

• Let me also say a word of congratulations to local resident Silas House, who was recently named Kentucky Poet Laureate by Gov. Andy Beshear.

House, who was born in Corbin and grew up in Lily, is a New York Times bestselling author of seven novels among other writings, including “Clay’s Quilt,” “A Parchment of Leaves,” “The Coal Tattoo” and “Eli the Good.” In 2012 he co-authored “Same Sun Here” with Neela Vaswani. House’s most recent novel, “Lark Ascending,” was published in 2022.

It’s always good to see local residents succeed and House certainly fits that bill.