Fewer than 20 seats are still available for the Greater Owensboro Chamber of Commerce’s bus trip to Frankfort on Thursday.
Candance Castlen Brake, chamber president, said chambers of commerce across western Kentucky are heading to Frankfort that day for the annual “West Kentucky Thank You Night” to thank state leaders for their help with legislation.
“As the largest community in the alliance, we need to have a big crowd of Owensboroans there to demonstrate our engagement and our interest in what is going on in Frankfort,” she said.
The event is scheduled for 4 to 6 p.m. CST in the Exum Center at Kentucky State University.
It includes a barbecue dinner, a cash bar and bluegrass music.
“Owensboro Bluegrass, Bourbon and BBQ will be fully represented at the event,” Brake said in an email.
She said the chamber has chartered a bus for the trip.
Brake said the bus will leave the Sportscenter parking lot at 1 p.m. and will be back no later than 9 p.m.
The bus is only for chamber members, she said.
But Brake said, “The event itself is open to anyone who would like to attend.”
Chamber members interested in the bus trip can send an email to chamber@owensboro.com.
“We want to make sure that we have a large crowd,” Brake said.
Twenty-six western Kentucky chambers of commerce joined in 2002 to sponsor the first “West Kentucky Thank You Night” in Frankfort.
But Owensboro has taken people to Frankfort to lobby for local projects a lot longer than that.
In 1994, the RiverPark Center and what was then the International Bluegrass Music Museum sponsored a “Bluegrass & Bar-B-Q Bonanza” at the Frankfort VFW Hall to present their case for $4 million in state aid.
More than 500 legislators, lobbyists, state officials and bluegrass fans from across Kentucky turned out that night to hear Ricky Skaggs, the New Coon Creek Girls and J.D. Crowe & the New South.
By Keith Lawrence Messenger Inquirer