With a new location and less operating revenue, Summer Motion certainly will be different in 2009, but one thing will not be different: It will remain an excellent free concert series and an excellent reason to spend the Independence Day holiday right here in Ashland.
The biggest change this year will be the location. Because of construction work on Ashland’s riverfront, the concerts will be in Central Park instead of on the city’s boat dock.
Summer Motion President Chuck Charles and his team of volunteers have worked many hour on the logistics of the park concerts — including notifying residents who live adjacent to the park — and are convinced they can accomodate large crowds for the free concerts. Of course, Summer Motion concerts in the park are not new. In previous years, performers like Billy Joe Royal, Gary Puckett and the Lovin’ Spoonful have performed in the park bandstand prior to the concerts on the river.
The recession also has impacted Summer Motion. Sponsorships are down by about $77,000 this year, which required planners to “beat the bushes for value,” Charles said. As a result, Ashland’s most popular annual event could not afford to book as many big name performers as in past years. While this year’s performers may lack the string of hits that past Summer Motion performers have had, they are still quite good.
Rising country stars Savannah Jack and Jake Jones will kick off the park concerts on July 1, followed by the Atlanta Rhythm Section and the Spencer Davis Group on July 2.
Micky Dolenz, one of the original Monkees, will be the featured performer on July 3. Dolenz — whose 53-year career in show business dates back to 1956 when he starred in the children’s TV show as “Circus Boy” — did not even know how to play the drums when he was cast as the Monkees’ drummer in 1965, but he learned quickly and went on the be the featured singer on such hits as “Last Train to Clarksville” and “I’m a Believer.” According to his Web site, he now is primarily a country singer but is certain to sing his Monkees hits for the Ashland crowd.
The Reflections will perform in the park on July 4, followed by a fireworks display on the river. Summer Motion always has one of he region’s best fireworks shows. There also will be live concerts in the park on July 5, including a semifinal round of the Colgate Country Showdown from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
“If you haven’t heard of them, you need to come anyway,” said Charles of this year’s lineup of entertainers. “They’re going to be great showmen.”
And you still can’t beat the price. We know of no other community of this size that offers the quality of free entertainment that Summer Motion does year after year. While the tough economic times have impacted this year’s festival, it remains among the best holiday events in the entire region. The park is not nearly as good a venue for the concerts as the riverfront, but it is the next best thing. Next year it will be back to a the riverfront.
Editorials
Different, but ...
Summer Motion still is a great way to celebrate the holiday
- Editorials
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Charles Chattin
Before it merged with Ashland Community College to form Ashland Community and Technical College as a result of the 1997 Higher Education Reform Act, the Ashland Area Vocational-Technical School compiled an impressive record for teaching job skills to young adults and placing more than 85 percent in jobs for which they were trained.
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Try again
It is time for Kentucky Speaker of the House Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, and Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, to cease playing political games and redraw district lines that are compact and are based far more on population changes during the first decade of this century than on partisan politics.
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'Asset poor'
More than one in four Kentucky households are “asset poor,” meaning that they are living from paycheck to paycheck with little or no financial cushion to fall back on should they suddenly lose their jobs or have another emergency resulting in a temporary loss of or delcine in income.
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Safer mines
The head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) says coal operators throughout the country are improving their operations and, as a result, mines are becoming safer. However, MSHA chief Joe Main said too many coal operators still “don’t get it” and are continuing to cut costs by ignoring safety. That’s why MSHA plans to continue targeting mines with a history of repeated violations for additional inspections.
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Not far enough
For the past three sessions of the Kentucky General Assembly, bills that would raise the minimum dropout age from 16 to 18 have been approved by the Kentucky House of Representatives by wide bipartisan margins only to die in the Senate without even a vote.
Now the Senate Education Committee has unanimously approved a dropout bill hailed as an alternative to the House bill, but it does not go nearly far enough. It is a halfway measure that would have only a limited effect on preventing teenagers from quitting high school before graduation and virtually assuring themselves of lives on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder.
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Not their job
The local government committee of the Kentucky House of Representatives has wisely killed a bill — dubbed “Cooper’s Law” — that would have allowed the family of the Lexington toddler with cerebral palsy to have a playhouse on their property despite a deed restriction that apparently prohibits such structures.
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Keeping FADE
Despite an increase in cost to the department, Carter County Sheriff Casey Brammell told the Carter County Fiscal Court that his department will continue to be active in the FIVCO Area Development Drug Enforcement (FADE) Task Force — at least for now.
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Needed changes
The soaring enrollment that Kentucky’s community and technical colleges have experienced in recent years could come to a sudden end — or at least be slowed — as about 5,500 students in the statewide system that includes Ashalnd Community and Technical College are expected to lose their financial aid under new rules being implemented by the federal government.
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Released early
While it is disappointing that 75 of the 952 prisoners granted early release in January have violated the terms of their releases, the good news is that none of the former inmates have been charged with new felonies. That’s an early, but positive, indication that the nonviolent felons released before their sentences were up have been carefully selected and are among those least likely to return to a life of crime.
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Obese children
Almost a decade after former Gov. Ernie Fletcher called childhood obesity an “epidemic” in Kentucky, a majority of Kentucky adults still think that there are too many overweight children in the state and they place the bulk of the blame squarely on the shoulders of their parents.
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Charles Chattin
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