What a week it’s been. We’ve had another memorable Chalk the Walk in uptown Mount Vernon with the perfect weather conditions on Sunday, May 4 (Happy belated Star Wars Day to all who celebrate), the fifth annual Teeling Walk-A-Thon raising more than $14,000 and a Mount Vernon citizen announcing plans to run for state attorney general.

We’ve also got commencement of our Cornell College students and Mount Vernon and Lisbon’s graduations in the coming weekends in May (thankfully, this year, the editor doesn’t have to pick which ceremony to attend and race off to the next one). We want to say congratulations to all graduates from our area schools once again.

We also have the Mount Vernon Cemetery Commission announcing several activities for this spring and early summer to help refurbish some graves in the cemetery, including the grave markers of two War of 1812 veterans.

There’s also opportunities for Mount Vernon and Lisbon residents to learn the proper ways to help clean up cemetery headstones that will be conducted sometime this fall and the opportunity to do just that at the cemetery.

Mount Vernon will also be possibly applying for a grant for downtown businesses to improve their façades in the coming months. That will be a three year process, and could align with some work happening with the uptown streetscape project for some of that work. Yes, the terms used in the grant application include slum and blight. Focus more on the blight elements as the areas the city is looking to address and improve in an otherwise excellent looking uptown.