Slaughters moving on Festival Plans

by Matt Hughes

J-E News Editor

The Slaughters City Commission met on Tuesday night in a meeting rescheduled from the week before due to snow.

The main item on the agenda was a meeting with Debbie Winstead of Independence Bank to discuss the future of a festival being planned for the Slaughters area.

Independence Bank sponsors an annual Tractor Ride in each of the five counties in which their branches are located. Last year, the first time the event was held in Slaughters, 57 tractors participated in a tractor show and 39 took part in a ride through 16 miles of rural Webster County.

This year the city is looking to get more involved in the event.

“What we talked about was expanding the tractor ride to be more of a community event,” said Winstead. “We are going to focus on starting small by incorporating different church groups from around the area who want to take part.”

She explained that invitations will be sent to the various churches around the Slaughters area asking them to take part. Each church will have a representative on the festival committee, which will make the decisions.

“I’m strictly going to do the tractor show and drive,” said Winstead, who will serve on the committee “They are going to organize an event with food booths and a ‘fall festival’ type atmosphere.”

Mayor Jeff Coomes has been wanting to start a festival in Slaughters for a number of years, and when a Slaughters citizen came to him with the idea of incorporating the Independence Bank Tractor Day, he jumped at the idea.

Winstead said that she proposed the first Saturday in August for the event, but scheduling will be up to the committee, which will meet in the next month.