Elkins mayor: City crews stayed busy during Forest Festival
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ELKINS -- The Mountain State Forest Festival made its triumphant return to the city of Elkins last week after a two-year hiatus due to COVID-19.
Many who enjoyed the festival may not have been aware of all the hard work that was put into the traditional event. Elkins Mayor Jerry Marco, who took part in his first festival as mayor, said it was a total team effort that made this year's event a success.
"Our city workers started putting plans in place three months prior to the start of the festival," Marco said. "Our street department, sanitation department, fire department, and police department all know their jobs very well, and we have employees within those departments who have worked Forest Festivals in the past, so they knew exactly what to expect and what to do.
"The planning in advance for us was tremendous and I commend all of our employees that were part of the phase."
Marco said he really didn't know what to expect going into an event that in the past has drawn close to 100,000 people to town on the Saturday of the Grand Feature Parade.
"This was my first Forest Festival as mayor so I was a little concerned going into the week," he noted. "But I ended up having a blast, I really did. I was a little exhausted after a really long weekend, but it was well worth it. I saw a lot of people I haven't seen in a long time and had the opportunity to make some new friends along the way."
Marco said that seeing people come back to town after not visiting for a while was one of the highlights of his week.
"I really enjoy that the Forest Festival is a reunion of sorts when everyone gets to come home and see how things are going," Marco said. "Our goal is for when people come home, we want them to see that the city is still moving forward, progressing and thriving. We want them to know that they have leaders here who are doing all that they can to make this a better community."
The mayor said he was told by several people throughout the week about what a good job the city was doing in making sure everything was cleaned up and ready to go each day.
"One of the biggest compliments I got was with the way the street department and sanitation department got the roads and everything blocked off and then cleaned up after the parades," Marco said. "Those departments worked some long hours last week and I was amazed when I saw that all the trash on the streets had been picked up from the parade when I was driving to church Sunday morning.
"I was proud of how hard our teams worked to get that looking the way it did Sunday morning. I really can't praise them enough for the job they did."
Marco also applauded all the first responders for being prepared for anything that may have occurred throughout the week.
"(Elkins Police) Chief (Travis) Bennett said that is probably one of the better festivals he's ever worked at because people seemed like they were really behaving themselves," Marco said. "They didn't have any major incidents and we received a lot of help from the Randolph County Sheriff's Office and West Virginia State Police."
The mayor said he believed this year's Forest Festival was an overall success and added he's looking forward to more in the future.
"The Forest Festival was fantastic for the city as a whole," Marco said. "I want to thank all the city employees for stepping up the way they did, and the community as a whole for coming together. Everyone seemed to have enjoyed themselves and had a good time."