July 12 - 15, 2007

2006 News

Kent Cornucopia Days 2007 - "The Festival of the Valley" - A community service project of the Kent Lions Club, Kent WA
 

 

 

 

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2006

 

Weather muzzles cries of `Play ball!'

2006-02-13
by Bruce Rommel
Journal Reporter
 

KENT -- Talk about a rain delay.

City parks staff were hoping the four new youth ball fields at Service Club Park would be ready for play this spring. But all those weeks of relentless rain in December and January halted most construction work.

That prevented seeding the ball fields. Because it takes three months or longer for new turf to grow before a field can be used, the new complex might not be ready until this fall, and possibly not until next year.

That's disappointing news for members of the hundreds of youth baseball and softball teams that now are registering for practice and game time this spring and summer at other fields.

There's such a high demand for youth teams that games often must be limited to a set time period. When time is up, the game is over, even if it's just the third or fourth inning of what would normally be a seven-inning game.

Work on the Service Club Park ball fields at Southeast 288th Street and 144th Avenue Southeast also was stalled several months last spring.

The state Department of Fish and Wildlife asked that work be delayed so it wouldn't disturb a pair of red-tailed hawks in a nearby tree during their nesting season.

``The hawks are still there, so I guess it's good that we waited,'' said Shane Gilbertson, a project manager for city parks projects.

However, the delays have meant the fields couldn't be seeded by last fall as earlier planned so the new grass would be ready for play this spring.

``Now we're not going to be able to seed the fields until this spring because of the setbacks,'' Gilbertson said. Depending on weather, he added, the fields might be ready by this fall.

``But it's quite possible we might not be able to play there until 2007,'' he said.

Dave Siegert, recreation manager for city parks and recreation programs, said youth baseball and softball games are being scheduled as usual for the city's other ball fields.

If the Service Club Park fields should be ready this season, he said, some already scheduled games will be shifted there.

``That will provide a lot of relief for other fields and less damage because they won't be overused,'' Siegert said.

Service Club Park is so named because local services clubs donated about $178,000 for the project, which helped the city win King County and state grants for construction. The clubs included Kent Lions, Kent Rotary, Kent Rotary Sunrise, Kiwanis of Kent, Meridian Kiwanis, Quota International and the Soroptomists.

The youth sports complex has two softball fields that are 225 feet from home plate to the outfield fence, and two that are 300 feet to the fence so they can be used for baseball or softball.

 

2006-02-08
by Bruce Rommel
Journal Reporter
 

KENT -- The city is bidding a ``faire-thee-well'' to the Canterbury Arts Festival.

After 19 years of Canterbury celebrations, featuring music, arts and a recreation of a medieval village, the city is dropping the annual August event after several years of decreasing attendance.

The festival, commonly known as the Canterbury Faire, also featured arts and crafts vendors, a juried arts show and a wide range of performances highlighting the community's cultural diversity.

Those features of Canterbury will now be included in Kent Cornucopia Days in July, the city's other major community festival, but there will be no more medieval or Renaissance village.

The decision by the Kent Arts Commission and city officials to cancel Canterbury followed a steady decline in visitors after a large Renaissance festival with medieval reenactments began several years ago in Gig Harbor during the same weekend as Kent's event.

And it also seemed as though Canterbury, as it evolved over nearly two decades, had run its course, said Ronda Billerbeck, the city's cultural programs manager. ``It was becoming an unusual combination, a medieval fair and the arts,'' Billerbeck said.

The Kent Canterbury festival began as a nod to the city's namesake, that other Kent in Canterbury, England. A featured attraction has been the medieval and Renaissance village hosted by costumed members of the Society for Creative Anachronism, a group whose members preserve pre-17th century English culture.

At the same time, the three-day Canterbury festival has offered arts and performances reflecting the community's increasingly diverse cultural heritage. Groups performing last year included Scottish bagpipers; Irish clog dancers; a Mexican mariachi band; and East African, Latino and Irish music performers.

The Kent Lions Club, which organizes the annual Kent Cornucopia Days, will be working with city staff to bring a diversity of music and other arts to its annual festival, scheduled for July 14-17 in the downtown area.

Bill Westcott, a Lions club member and director of the Cornucopia festival, said there will be two stages for entertainment, one at the Kent Regional Library and the other on the plaza in front of the AMC theaters at the new Kent Station complex.

The juried arts show will move to the Green River Community College branch campus at Kent Station, and the vendors who offered hand-crafted crafts and artworks at Canterbury can join other vendors at Cornucopia's street fair, Westcott said.

``As the years go by, we'll be adding more and more,'' Westcott said.

The arts from the Canterbury event might turn out to be ``a better fit'' for Kent Cornucopia Days, which offers a wide range of events for the community, Billerbeck said.

Cornucopia also features a parade tied to the annual SEAFAIR celebrations, a carnival, dragon boat races at Lake Meridian Park and other events, she said.

Bruce Rommel can be reached at bruce.rommel @kingcountyjournal.com or 253-872-6722.

DECLINING ATTENDANCE

Estimated attendance at Canterbury Arts Festival's weekends, based largely on sales of $1 buttons for admittance:

* 2001 -- 11,300

* 2002 -- 10,200

* 2003 -- 6,800*

* 2004 -- 4,000**

* 2005 -- 4,600

* The year another Renaissance festival opened in Gig Harbor on the same weekend.

** The year it rained all weekend.