By Tamara Cook
The Cooper-Young Festival is a place where everyone feels comfortable. People from all over the city come to the Festival to celebrate together for one day, and the barriers that separate us go away. Those are some of the comments I heard during television interviews and videos from our recent Cooper-Young Festival on Saturday, September 17.
I have also received emails, phone calls, and Facebook messages from people all over the city, county, and beyond in praise of our Cooper-Young Festival. Everyone wonders how we pull off such a wonderful, safe, entertaining day year after year. People from all walks of life tell me they enjoy coming to the Festival more than any other event that Memphis has to offer.
This event is truly like none other in Memphis. It takes all of us to pull this off, and for that, I am grateful to the business community, the residential neighborhood, and the property owners. There are some specific people that really offered their help this year that I would like to thank. Please let me begin with the folks that are the backbone of the Festival that work on this event year-round to make it successful. They are Bill Stemmler, Stephen Crump, Chuck Parr, Ken Whitehead, Charlie Ryan, Lizi Beard-Ward, and Cameron Mann.
And now everyone else from the Cooper-Young area that helped put on the largest single day event in Memphis. Thank you so much for what you offered – however big or small.
Richard Sullivan – Comm-Trans Sully Corporation
Bill Malone – Crye-Leike Realtors
Ryan Trimm – Sweet Grass
Bret James – Decade Properties
Dale Johnson – Signworks
Nick Mitchell – Fortunes by Stephanie
Barb Elder and the Lamplighter staff
Kristan Huntley – Cooper-Young Community Association
DJ Naylor – Celtic Crossing
Reggie Frazier – Café Ole
Bobby Cook – Albert Cook Plumbing
Jim and Nancy Pettit – Memphis Drum Shop
David Bratton and Connie Buchanan – Bratton Construction
Eric Babb and Joey Price – Wilson-Babb Upholstery
Julia Hicks – First Congregational Church
Glen Melton and Mark Heath – Melton and Heath CPAs
Ray Todd, Jamie, and staff – High Electric
Jason Doty – The Sweet Life Bakery
Tom Knowles – Memphis Art Academy
David Cleveland – Cortona
Kevin Dean – Literacy Mid-South
David Smith – David Perry Smith Gallery
Theresa Clinton – Party Concepts
Bill Pritchard
Gene Hiteberger
Samantha Tate
And all those that are not in our neighborhood:
Billy Riley and staff – Combustion
Julie Terry and staff – Civitans
CeCe Palazola and students – Memphis College of Art
Victoria Parker, George Baldwin, and students – Visible Music College
Paul and Chris Averwater
Bumper Dunn
Lt. Chalmers and his Co-Act Officers
Officer Barbara Davis and her Reserve Team
I also wish to extend a special thank you to all of our sponsors for donating money and other items that help offset the cost of this huge event. Our 2011 sponsors were: A. S. Barbaro, Lenny’s Sub Shop, The Commercial Appeal, Memphis Grizzlies, Sam’s Town, CVS, Comcast Communications, Memphis Drum Shop, Bank of America, T-Mobile, Albert Cook Plumbing, Southland Park Gaming & Racing, Visible Music College, Salvation Army – Kroc Center, Summer Winds Resorts, TCBY, Signworks, Vonage, Entercom Radio – FM100, WRVR 104.5, ESPN 92.9, WKQK 94.1, Toof Commercial Printing, Methodist Healthcare, EMHC, Delta Ice Services, Zebra Marketing, and ProShow Systems Memphis.
Please mark your calendar, September 15, 2012, for our 25th anniversary Festival! See you then!
Recent Comments