The Highlands Area Chamber of Commerce plans on bringing a new festival to the town this winter that will bring in more snow.
Last Thursday, the Highlands Town Board of Commissioners conditionally approved for the chamber to go ahead and start planning for the new Snow Fest.
“We have been working on developing this Snow Festival for a couple of months now,” Highlands Chamber of Commerce executive director Kaye McHan said. “We wanted to have something really fun, in the park, and we have identified January 29, as a possible date. That is usually a really cold weekend. So, we would bring in somebody that would blow the park full of snow.”
Another big aspect of the festival would be a merry go round that slides people around on innertubes.
“Children and adults will be able to ride this merry go round,” McHan said. “We sent the company a map of Kelsey Hutchinson Park to give them approximate sizes and what it would look like. The idea is that we would have a little slide area, that will also hold adults, the merry go round and then an area that they petition off for the little guys. We could also have smores at the fireplace and that sort of thing.”
McHan spoke with Recreation Department Director Lester Norris about the idea and Norris had one concern, if there would be any damage of grass in the park.
“I told him that we would be happy to go out and assess the grass and really check everything,” McHan said. “We would also do that after the event and if there was any damage, it would be our responsibility.”
Commissioner Buzz Dotson said one of his main concerns is the amount of noise the snowmakers would cause.
“Those things make a tremendous amount of noise,” Dotson said. “I think if that is going to be done it needs to be shut down at a certain time in the evening.”
The Board of Commissioners conditionally approved the Snow Festival on the terms that McHan would update the board on the scheduling of snow blowing.
“I think this will be a really fun weekend,” McHan said. “All of the kids would be out on a Saturday, and we could all come together as a community. We thought it would be something fun when it is going to be a little slower here in Highlands.”
- By Christopher Smith