Well, well, well, Boom Days was a blast once again! It just keeps getting bigger and better. Maurey Roberts and his team have already begun working on Boom Days 2019. This is a huge event with many moving parts so planning out the details is absolutely critical. Maurey has a Boom Days committee that meets once a month to plan out this award winning event. This event takes volunteers from all walks of our Fort Payne community from retirees to clubs at Fort Payne High School. Thanks to Fort Payne City employees, sanitation department, Fire department, Police department, Recreation department, Mayor Chesser and the city council. I saw city council members help doing the changeover in between bands Saturday night so this was truly a group effort. I cannot help but to thank Chaunda Greathouse, Sonya Maynard and her husband Jason Maynard aka super volunteer.

Maurey and his team put together a great musical line up from some of our Fort Payne talent, regional talent and world known acts. I can see some of these acts moving on to bigger venues, remember Blackberry Smoke played at Boom Days and look at those guys now. I promise one can never tell how an artist is going to develop over time and how they can progress and become very successful. Overall it was a wonderful day for the artists, vendors and our community as a whole. Our merchants are getting exposure to literally thousands of people that this event brings to their doorstep and the economic impact from which we all benefit.

I want to say thank you to our downtown merchants for their patience during these events, I understand that this is out of the norm on these Saturdays. Hopefully you reap the financial rewards during the event as well as later on to gain new customers.

Fort Payne Main Street is all about our downtown, helping put businesses in empty buildings and advertising their new ventures. We have started a new way to spotlight old and new businesses, we call it “We said yes to a Main Street address” by showing the owners, their place of business and what they bring to our downtown. It is all about the financial impact of downtown and making downtown Fort Payne a highly sought after location for future entrepreneurs. Downtown is on the upswing with growth and our community is very excited!