Two big thank-yous – one from Oriental’s Town Hall, the other from Croakerfest’s chief organizer to credit the crew of volunteers who worked on this year’s Croakerfest.

">

home

forecast weather station weather station

Letters: Big Appreciations For Croakerfest
Thanks To Volunteers
July 15, 2015

T
wo big thank you notes for 2015 Croakerfest. One from Oriental’s Town Hall, the other from the Croakerfest Chief, Cheryl Thompson.


Wow! All I can say is that Croaker Festival 2015, Swimming Among Coral, 35th Anniversary has been completed with great success.

By all reports from the realtors and local businesses, everyone had a banner weekend. Thousands of patrons attended the two-day festival even though rain dampened the activities on Friday evening with the “Bryan Mayer Band” having to be rescheduled.

Saturday saw blue skies and a steady breeze which was welcomed by the festival goers but not the sailors that bravely tried to race through gale force winds. Thanks to the Oriental Dingy Club and Paul Welles in their attempt to keep the tradition alive.

Throughout the week as we were working feverishly getting everything ready, I observed boats filling up the harbor coming from all directions, houses lit up that usually are dark and vacant, and visitors milling around town representing many different states and countries.

,It was our goal to provide a festival that showcases Oriental and Pamlico County, one that brings families together for good ole fashioned fun.

As always it takes an enormous amount of volunteers to plan, organize and implement this festival. Listed below please read the names of all of the volunteers associated with this year’s festival. If you happen to see them around give them a thank-you for their service.

Executive Assistant – Lindsay Cassillo
Executive Board – Sally Belangia, Barb Venturi, Marsha Palpham
Garbology – Jayne Stasser, Committee Chair. John Bloom, Claudia Bemis, Nelda Coats, Tom Cochran, Cynthia Cochran,Vickie Conrad, Mary Duffie,
Grace Evans, Kathryn Garcia, Enrique Garcia, Nancy Hiller, Ann Kellogg, Peggy King, Liz Lathrop, Tom Lathrop, Joe Mattea, Lynn Mattea, Viviana Popperwill, Maggie Monk, Wendy Osserman, Jeff Potter, Mary Ann Parham, Nancy Piner, Andy Plaice, Tonya Plaice, Doug Sligh, Carol Small, Pat Stockwell, Laurie Stockwell, TJ Wooton

Entertainment – Chris Daniels; Horace Williamson, Sound; All the Bands and their Roadies
Pamlico Chorale and the Pamlico County Community Band
Advertising and Sponsorships – Carol Dixon, Pat Dixon, Katy Pugh, Kathy Steere, Joe Wakefield
T-shirts Printing – Pigeon Holes, Maggie Monk & Ellen Speciale,
T-shirt Design – Cameon Funk
Electrical, Lighting and Problem Solver Extraordinaire – Jack Bond
Set-Up & Take Down – Tim Eckloff, Davey Martin, Jack Bond, Pat King & Andrew Maier

Croaker Booth – Betsy Quitkin Chair: Trish and Ted Mead, Alice Petrie, Harriet and Ralph Scharr, Melissa Lavallee, Patty Rosencrantz, Elizabeth MacDonald, Sharon Foreman, Dawn and Walter Hoyle, Maryann and Jim Hartmeyer, Chris Doty and Ken Mason and Jennifer Smart and Tim Balfour.
Decorations – Irma Bond Maxbauer
Kids Park – Flora Moorman, Jeff Aydellette, Michelle Noevere, Karen Prince, Camp Seagull campers, Jason Hyatt, Andrew Maier, Ethan Schmidt, Tim Eckloff, Dorian Record
Little Miss Minnow & Croaker Queen Pageant – Breanna Belangia, Dana Meadows, Chrissy Fulcher-Cahoon, Jennifer Roe, Arlington Place
Baking Contest – chairman: Jeanne Robertson. Vicki Conrad, Tanya Twitchell, Finola Corbett (International judge, Ireland)
Coloring Contest – Cynthia Cochran

Publicity – Rosalyn Kutchins, The Pamlico News, The County Compass, Towndock.net, The Sun Journal
Parade – Paul Fairbank
Fireworks – Jim Nixon, Chair. Chris Ireland, Southeast Volunteer Fire Department, U.S. Coast Guard
Trophies – Ladies of the Neuse for the Parade Trophies; Turtle Midyette for the Baking Contest and Coloring Contest; Eric Kindle for the Coloring Contest Ice Cream
Webmaster – Mim Miller

Safety – EMT Eric Kindle, Dr. Dunn
Security- Oriental Police Department and Pamlico County Sheriff Department
The Town of Oriental and the Pamlico County Chamber of Commerce
Property Use – The United Methodist Church, The Town of Oriental, Ms. June Tingle, Ms. Kip Nicholas, River Neuse Suites, Mr. Richard Sammans, Mr.& Ms. Gordon LeGrande, Cristo Family
WCTI Channel 12 – Les Stills, Donnie Cox, Jonathan Weant, Mallory LaPella
Parade Participants- too many to name but thanks for all of your efforts to make the parade one of the best ever
Oriental Rotary Club – Tents, Tables
And last but not least, I must thank my sister, Susan Maier, who became the chief cook and bottle washer, house cleaner, seafood processor at my house and entertained 11 people and 6 big dogs when I couldn’t be there.

As you can see it takes a whole lot of folks to make this happen…my apologies if I have left out anyone but know that your efforts are greatly appreciated. My sincere gratitude goes out to the 2015 Croaker Crew who did a most fantastic job.

T-Shirts sold out at the festival so we are taking orders if you would still like to purchase one. Contact Cheryl @ 252-249-0510 (Thanks, Cameon, for an awesome design.)

Thank you to All who helped to make the 2015 Croaker Festival a success!

Cheryl Thompson
Oriental

A Letter of Thanks to the Croaker Festival Production Crew;

Once again, you have outdone yourselves and produced a fabulous festival, which delighted old and young alike. The 35th Annual Croaker Festival is being touted as one of the bestorganized, well attended festivals in recent memory, and a large crew of volunteers deserve our gratitude for a job truly well done. They say to single out a few is to forget many, but we’ll list the department heads who worked tirelessly and ask them to forward our thanks on to their crews.

Cheryl Thompson- Head Croaker and Festival Organizer. Cheryl had a valuable assistant this year, Miss Lindsay Casillo (who will leave us to do this for a living);

Carol Dixon – Advertising
Pat Dixon – Sponsorships
Betsy Quitkin – Croaker Booth
Cynthia Cochran – Coloring Contest
Irma Bond Maxbauer-Decorations
Jack Bond – Lighting, Electrical Crew, and Stage Construction/Problem Solver Extraordinaire
Tim Eckloff and Andrew Maier – Stage Wranglers, Electrical Crew
Chris Daniels – Entertainment
Jim Nixon – Fireworks
Jayne Stasser – Garbologist
John Bloom – Asst Garbologist, forklift operator
Jeff Aydelette and Flora Moorman – Kids’ Park
Michelle Noevere – Bounce House Central at the Kids’ Park
Karen Prince – Heartworks Kids Carnival
Breanna Belangia – Croaker Pageant
Dana Meadows – Little Miss Minnow Pageant
Paul Fairbank – Parade
Rosalyn Kutchins – Publicity
Mim Miller – Website
Jeannie Robertson – Baking Contest
Barb Venturi – Signage
Turtle Midyette and Ladies of the Neuse – Trophies

Thanks to these department heads as well as all of the countless volunteers whose hands came together to produce a memorable Croaker Festival. Your ability to provide for thousands and have each participant feel the small town peacefulness and fellowship of southern hospitality was artful.

Thank you for welcoming those who traveled great distances with the same friendly greetings reserved for locals in some resort communities, and planting the seeds of hopeful return in the minds of our visitors. You have accomplished in one weekend what several organizations spend several years attempting to accomplish, and we are so very grateful for your sacrifice of time and effort, and thankful to have had the opportunity to enjoy this wonderful weekend.

Sincerely,

The Town of Oriental Mayor and Board of Commissioners
Oriental
July 14, 2014


Share this page:

back to top

TownDock.net welcomes correspondence on this subject and others. Please limit your letter to 500 words.
Send your letter to letters@towndock.net.
No anonymous letters will be accepted. Well-made, civilly-spoken points welcomed. Please include the city & state where you live.
If you cc TownDock letters you send to government officials, they may be included in the Letters column. (Such correspondence to government – town, county, state federal – is part of the public record.)