Mount Vernon’s Heritage Days festival was all about celebrating the community of Mount Vernon, at the same time as honoring Mount Vernon’s and the nations past.
Friday night’s activities at the Lester Buresh Family Community Wellness Center included a pickleball tournament, live music and food trucks.
All night, the overcast skies threatened a bout of rain.
Assistant manager Sarah Boots said that the center was ready this year to move some of the celebration indoors to outlast some storms that may have popped up.
But that rain threat held off.
On Saturday, the Mount Vernon Alumni Association held their annual breakfast from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m.
Alumni Foundation director Amie Roberts said she was very pleased with the turnout to the event, of both alumni and community members grabbing bites to eat ahead of the parade.
Mount Vernon’s parade theme was Celebrating America’s 250th birthday, with many floats including Bridge Community Bank and Mount Vernon Bank and Trust holding to that theme.
The Community Development Group also handed out volunteer awards on the main stage, with Sue Margheim recognized as Volunteer of the Year, John Bardsley Citizen of the Year, Bijou Movie Theater as Business of the Year, Mount Vernon-Lisbon Childcare Solutions Group as Project of the Year and the SELCC Community Gardens program as the Above and Beyond Service Awards (see those stories in the July 23 Sun newspaper).
Favorite events like the bags tournament, Lions Club Bingo and car show drew crowds at the event.
A documentary on the Lincoln Highway was screened at the Bijou to an almost full theater, which highlighted the travails of the military convoy in 1919 who navigated the highway system from Washington, D.C., to California. Many of the roads west of the Mississippi were still dirt when the convoy came through, and future President Dwight Eisenhower was one of the soldiers on that convoy. Eisenhower became known for his work on expanding federal highways.
