The Seymour Young Marines march along the route during the Seymour Oktoberfest parade Saturday.
Greg Jones | For The Tribune
Making Seymour shine
Thumbs up to everyone involved in making the 49th annual Seymour Oktoberfest a success. That list includes the members of the board of directors and all of the others volunteers, the organizations that provided activities for festivalgoers and the participants in the parade. The thumbs up also includes the police officers who helped keep the peace and the city workers who helped set up and take down the festival to make the city operational again Monday morning. The festival, which is always a crowd-pleaser, serves as a great time for present and former residents and the many visitors who show up. A related thumbs up to Mother Nature for providing a picture-perfect weekend for the event.
Helping hands
Thumbs up to the 30 or so members of Sakura Helping Hands for making and selling traditional Japanese arts, crafts and gifts during the Seymour Oktoberfest. Each year, the group of women raises between $2,500 and $3,000 at their booth at Oktoberfest and shares the profits with Seymour Community School Corp., Jackson County Public Library, Schneck Medical Center, the city and other groups. Sakura Helping Hands was started 29 years ago as a project to help get Japanese women, who live in the Seymour area temporarily while their husbands work at local Japanese-owned companies, more involved in the community and as a way to teach others about their culture and heritage.
Fun(d) raising
Thumbs up to the local physicians who participated in the inaugural Operation Pumpkin event to raise funds for two Schneck Foundation scholarships. A total of $3,104 was raised from the contest for the Allied Health Scholarship for those pursuing a career in professional allied health and the Amanda M. Dick Honorary Scholarship for women pursuing a career in the medical field.
Absent
Thumbs down to absentee landlords who don’t bother to take care of their property, allowing it to become rundown and an eyesore. Abandoned homes often become havens for drug activity, and abandoned buildings in the downtown area create plenty of issues for neighboring business owners and the city.