Festival brings them home

MIKE JAMES
The Independent

CATLETTSBURG September 02, 2007 11:23 pm

— A week of leave isn’t much time for a young serviceman facing deployment to Iraq.
For Drew Campbell, there was only one choice: Make it Labor Day and make it a trip home to the Gate City.
“I’ve never missed a Labor Day yet,” said the 20-year-old military policeman, who is stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.
Campbell was among the townspeople clustered around the courthouse Sunday as Catlettsburg continued its annual three-day bash.
It’s his first time home in a year and he plans to make the most of it. The family lives right on the parade route so his mother, Susan Campbell, will be entertaining upwards of 50 people at their own reunion today.
She’s not surprised her son chose this holiday for his leave. She remembers him as a boy whizzing around in a golf cart, doing errands for festival organizers.
“Since I’ve been able to do stuff, I’ve always been involved in Labor Day,” Drew Campbell said.
Drew Campbell’s urge to come home isn’t unusual, according to festival organizer Gail Sammons.
Standing on the courthouse grounds, she can look in any direction and point at someone who has slipped back into town for the weekend.
“It’s just that kind of small town that everyone wants to come home to,” Sammons said.
People tend to schedule their vacations and family reunions around the weekend, she said.
Case in point: Sammons paused to hug Susan Yates, formerly of Catlettsburg and now of Nicholasville.
“Everybody pretty much does come back,” Yates said. “You get to see a lot of people you wouldn’t get to see otherwise.”
Sunday’s festival highlights included activities for children and music sponsored by Touchstone Ministries. The Trash to Treasure rummage sale the prior day had drawn about 300 people and the mayor’s reception the night before that perhaps 200, Sammons said.
It’s the 40th straight year for the festival, she said.
It’s also the eighth straight year for George Jones to perform, which he’s scheduled to do at 9 p.m. on the main 26th Street stage, along with Bobby Bare, who comes on at 8 p.m. Galen Griffith opens the show at 7 p.m.
Earlier, at the courthouse stage, Stephen Salyers performs at 11 a.m., Jessica Baldridge at noon, the Wizards of Dance at 1 p.m., Caitlin Mulvaney at 2 p.m. and the Joe Freeman Band at 2:30.
MIKE JAMES can be reached at mjames@dailyindependent.com or at (606) 326-2652.