If anyone had told me in 2001 when I began working at the Chamber (virtually handing out maps, phone books and answering the phone) that in 2011 I would have a swinging door, a phone ringing off the hook, 50-100 E-mails a day, 25-50 phone messages while I am away (which has blown my message machine to garble on some days) and constantly out of the office working on ten different projects I would have called you the biggest liar on earth. BUT isn’t it GREAT! I am so pleased and happy for our city and county that so many good things are happening for so many. All of our businesses are so busy all across our county, it is just unbelievable. We are so blessed to have this wonderful economic boost for our area.

The Karnes City Chamber, Economic Development and the Kenedy Chamber are working on producing a new map, as we have exhausted our supply completely and believe me we had a large supply about a year ago. We are selling ad space on the maps and the new maps will have all four cities with an index on one side and the county on the other side. If you are interested in buying an ad space, please call me at 583-3223 or 583-5929 for prices. There will not be a lot of space for ads, so if you are interested please let me know as soon as possible, as we need to get these printed right away. It is nothing for any of the offices above to hand out 20 or 30 maps a day and sometimes one company wants that many mailed to them for their crews.

The Chamber is constantly working on Bluebonnet Days. The event is having many changes this year. On Saturday, May 7th, we will have a 5K Run at Joe Gulley Park, 7:00am, Sandra Chesser is our Chairperson for that event. We are still working on possibly having the Girls Fast Pitch Softball Tournament. The Bluebonnet Days Parade will take place downtown as usual that morning at 11:00am. John Wayne Schulz and Gabe Garcia will be our Grand Marshals.

Malcolm Chestnut and Rusty Badillo of Chesnutt Arena have offered to partner with us to have the remainder of the festival. On Friday, May 6th, there will be a roping event in the arena, the cook-off teams will move in, the Margarita Contest will be held, there will be food, beer and other drinks, and we will have our own John Wayne Schulz and his band perform that evening. Entry into the event is $10.00 per person for everyone. On Saturday, the Triple Heat Cook-off will begin at 8am, with awards at 4:30pm. The winners from the Friday roping will rope again on Saturday, as well as mutton bustin’ and calf scramble for the kids and more events possible. We thank Malcolm and his PR/Manager, Rusty Badillo, for all their hard work and helping us so much to be able to have our events along with theirs too. Many thanks to Bobby and Yvonne Alexander for sponsoring the Annual Car Show and allowing us to hold it on their Alexander Auto Center parking lot starting at 2:00pm on Saturday. The car show is open for all to enjoy, KPD Officer Brian Mayfield is chairperson, and this event benefits the Explorers Club. Entertainment for Saturday evening will be openers Gabe Garcia and Jon Pardi followed by Jarrod Birmingham! There will be a $10.00 entry fee for all on Saturday all day. We are moving our Cajun Night to another date later in the year, but it will be held. So as you can see lots of changes this year and we hope you will join us and enjoy all of them. As always a portion of the proceeds of Bluebonnet Days goes into our scholarship fund.

As a reminder, scholarship applications are available at the Kenedy High School counselor’s office. We hope to have lots of applicants this year. The scholarships will be awarded at graduation on June 3rd. Deadline for entry is May 13th.

The Chamber will hold a Ribbon Cutting for Dunn & Dunn Company on Thursday, March 24th at 3:00pm. Michael Dunn invites all of you to join him as we welcome him as a new member to the Chamber. The cutting will be held at one of Michael’s homes he is remodeling and restoring at 306 Tilden in Kenedy. Please try to come and see the magic that Michael does with these older homes. Refreshments will be served. Have a great rest of the week, Carolyn