City of Holbrook Community Events Coordinator Kathleen Smith addressed members of the Holbrook Chamber of Commerce at their latest meeting regarding the community’s annual Wild West Days event and the need for more volunteers for community events.
“The focus with my position is gearing more toward economic development versus events. I am limited on my time for events, so I’m working with other organizations to take over some of these events,” she said, referencing the Gearheads Car Club, which will now be heading up the annual Route 66 Festival previously handled by Smith and her volunteers.
Smith said that under her direction Wild West Days will be moving to the end of April and the city would be hosting a Friday night event. She has spoken informally with members of the Hashknife Posse who have expressed an interest in assisting with the event. This would allow school kids to become involved and would focus more on Holbrook’s Wild West history.
“I want to take it down to the (Little Colorado) river. Do a big cowboy dinner and bonfire. I talked to a few of the Hashknife members, and they said they’d like to do some cowboy stories and have Tim Kelley there singing some songs and make it one big Friday night party,” she said.
The Bucket of Blood races would be held the following morning with the exception of the bike race, which would remain in July and be expanded.
Smith said that if chamber members preferred, they could have the entire event back or she would be happy to collaborate with the organization for the event in April. “The city can do Friday night and the chamber can do events on Saturday at the Historic Courthouse if they’d like,” she said.
Chamber President Yvonne Larsen expressed her concern that focusing primarily on the Old West wouldn’t bring people out to the event. “I think we tried that for a couple of years and it just didn’t bring in the people. We even brought in cowboy poets, and no one would even sit and watch him,” she said.
When the topic of funds was brought up, Smith said that she has no money for next year’s event and had no money for it this year. “Anything I do will be off sponsorships or revenues. We spent $100 on this last (Wild West Day) event,” she said.
Larsen expressed her concern with adding to the load of one part-time employee who already has her time filled with membership recruitment and other duties. She also noted that most of the members already have their time filled operating their businesses.
Smith agreed that one of the biggest challenges is finding volunteers willing to assist with bringing events to the community. She noted that she relies heavily on the same three volunteers for all of her bigger events and has concerns that she may be overworking them, as they work at fulltime jobs as well.
“For me it came down to what is the point of Wild West Days, what are we trying to accomplish? Is it to provide vendors for people, a shopping experience, a food experience or a Wild West experience? In my head, my sense of it was let’s make this a Wild West experience different than what we’ve been giving,” said Smith.
She asked the chamber board to consider the opportunity and to notify her in the next month if there is a role they would like to take on as part of the event.
Residents interested in volunteering in the community are encouraged to contact Smith at (928) 524-6225.
