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ELKINS -- The Randolph County Commission approved funding requests for a graduation party and for a Fourth of July celebration during its most recent meeting.
The first request on the meeting's agenda was from Our Town Inc. and the Mountain State Street Machines. The organizations were seeking funding help for this summer's Car Show and Fourth of July Celebration, which will be held in Elkins Town Square.
Our Town volunteer Priscilla Gay came before the Commission to make the request and first talked about an Our Town and Mountain State Street Machines member who recently passed away.
"This will be our first show without Bobby Hart, a long-time leader and member of Mountain State Street Machines and Our Town," Gay said. "You never saw Bobby without a smile on his face and he was always concerned about his community. About eight years ago it was almost decided that there was going to be no more car shows. But Bobby and a couple other people got together and successfully came up with something that allowed the car show to continue. That small group realized how important the car show was to Elkins and the community."
Gay told the County Commission that this year's Car Show and celebration will take place for two days on July 4-5.
"The Car Show will be held over a two-day span and there is so much more to the Car Show than just looking at the cars," Gay said. "It brings many people to Elkins and most of the people who come here eat our restaurants, go shopping, and stay overnight... We had a 24% increase in cars taking part in last year's show and we are anticipating a really good show again this year. We will have Fleetwood Macked, a Fleetwood Mac cover band, playing on Friday night, and will have fireworks after the band is done performing."
Due to the ongoing construction of the new downtown Event Center, Gay said that Our Town is currently looking for a new location to set off the fireworks.
"We have identified a place to possibly shoot them from," Gay said. "We are committed to continually having them low on the ground in downtown Elkins."
Commission President David Kesling told Gay that the event was important to the community and that the RCC would provide the organization $5,000 for the celebration.
"This draws a lot of people not only to Elkins, but to the county as a whole," Kesling said. "And when those people visiting stay in the hotels outside of the city limits of Elkins, that's when we can collect the hotel-motel tax that we can use to help fund this project. So it's a good return on the investment. Like you said, visitors not only stay at the hotels, but they support the local small business by going out to eat and going out to shop. Elkins is busy that day and I think it's a worthwhile project."
Next on the agenda was a funding request from Harman High School and Project Safe Graduation. Harman School Principal Kelley Shaffer made the request to the RCC.
"This started with help from the Junior Woman's Club of Elkins back in 2022," Shaffer said. "They started this event for the graduating class of Harman and we look to continue that tradition. The event will be held at the school following graduation and there will be prizes, food and entertainment."
Shaffer announced that this year's graduation will be May 27, with nine graduates with this year's class.
"The goal of this party is to give all graduates a safe and fun way to spend the night of their graduation," Shaffer said. "This party depends solely on the donations of local organizations, churches and businesses. We have found out by talking to other county organizations in charge of similar events that enjoyable entertainment and quality prizes are the best incentive for seniors to come and stay at the party. Every graduating senior will leave the party with a prize."
The Commission agreed to provide $1,000 to this year's graduation party. The money will be taken from the courthouse contractual line item of the county budget.
The town of Montrose attended a previous meeting and was seeking funding for help with an ongoing park project. The commission tabled the request at the time, but announced at this meeting that it was providing $5,000 to help with the project. The money will be taken from the courthouse contractual line item.
"We had a presentation last meeting from Montrose about the park and we provided them with $23,000 last year to get started," Kesling said. "Since the price of equipment has gone up and they were looking for some more help. They want to purchase one of those climbing rock boulders for the park and we will help with that."
The final request on the agenda came from the Randolph County Pool and Splash Pad, which was seeking its first budgeted allotment for the upcoming season.
The money will be for de-winterizing the pool, and for lawn care, pool chemicals and employees' salaries. The Commission agreed to the funding request of $7,500 for the Pool and Splash Pad, which is scheduled to open on Memorial Day weekend. The money will be taken from the hotel-motel tax line item of the county budget.