Chamber fireworks sales top expectations

Chamber Executive Director Meri Ann Rush gave a report for their fireworks stand at the latest Chamber of Commerce Zoom meeting.

Rush had just finished their final inventory and said that the goal was to sell a gross of a quarter-million dollars.

Rush said, “We bypassed that.” Even after selling fireworks with huge discounts, sometimes up to 80% off, they made a lot of gross revenue. Rush said that leftover fireworks will be taken to other stores that are open. For the next year, there will be new products.

Rush said it will take some time to process all the invoices to determine what funds go to the school teams that assisted in manning the store. Rush said that “the FFA kids had a blast. They were cute to watch.” 

Rush said that the Pageant Days parade is on. It will be fun, floats and people running for office since it’s an election year. During the last election, the parade had 43 floats. The parade will be Saturday, August 1 at 10 a.m. The theme is “We are survivors.”

The Chamber Banquet will be October 3. They made a change for the banquet to be held the first weekend in October from here on out. This year it will be a “Mask Ball” because of COVID-19

Rush said they are asking for an exception to allow eight people per table. The food will be buffet style so that serving the people will be done in a timely manner. The tables will be 6 feet apart.

At the moment they need to measure the space of the banquet to see how many tickets they can sell and report to Dr. Vernon Miller the amount of people that can fit in the space. Rush noted that the tables will be for a particular business and they can assign seating. Also, the work group is considered a family unit since they typically spend more time, or as much, with work-family than their own family. 

Rush reported that the lodging tax is up for reelection and that she and Greg Willson are forming a PAC for the promotion of the tax. The County’s Travel and Tourism Board cannot lobby for themselves.

In the Main Street report, Howie Samelson said they received positive feedback for the Shop Smart, Shop Safe program. They have stickers in windows for this.

They are also promoting Wyoming Local Made products. Merchants got t-shirts too. There was a contest for designs for state convention. Owl Creek Graphics won the design and production award for the second time in a row.

Samelson also mentioned in the Shop Smart, Shop Safe program a grant for hand sanitizer stations through the state. Some hand sanitizer stations will be set up in the next week or so. Main Street will decide where to put up four stations.

Finally, Rush mentioned their Meet the Candidate Forum on July 20 at 6:30 p.m. in the park at the Pavilion. All local, state and federal candidates have been sent invitations. This will be an opportunity for the public to interact with those running for office and to ask questions.