More of the Good Stuff!

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It was another exciting weekend on the campaign trail! We were in Bright on Saturday for the Bright, Indiana Community Festival, where we had a great group walk in the parade. There were about 25 of us walking together, passing out candy and meeting with people. We even made a float on the back of a classic tractor that our friend Bob Werner owned. It was a lot fun walking down the street and seeing the smiling faces, and it was amazing to see and feel the support from the parade watchers, and from the wonderful people who volunteered to walk with me. Thank you to all of them.

After walking in the parade we headed off to Blooming Grove’s Fireman’s Festival where we were also welcomed by some familiar faces. The fine folks of Blooming Grove’s Fire Department are volunteers, but they work as if they were earning a million dollars. It was a hot day and the people working the festival had a mammoth group of people to feed, and they did all of it with smiling faces and enjoyed every minute of it. Needless to say, in keeping with true southeastern Indiana tradition, the fried chicken was amazing!! It was wonderful to see all of the volunteers working hard to be able to raise a little money to be able to serve the people of Blooming Grove when duty called. It’s amazing the kind of people that we get to meet and talk with on a daily basis while we are going around on the road.

For our next stop, yes it keeps going; we traveled to Yorkville, IN for the St. Martin Festival. We stopped there for about an hour and got to talk to a few dozen people about whatever crossed there minds. Too many things came up to mention, but it would be fair to say that there was a great response. When we walked in it was apparent that these bright orange shirts that we all wear do nothing but attract attention. Often, the first question we hear when we go anywhere is “what is this J-U-D all about,” or something to that effect. What is important about the t-shirts is that they provide us a unique way to start conversations with people that tend to lend themselves to talking about the issues, or at least a good laugh.

We left the St. Martin’s fair in order to head back to Bright for the evening activities at the Firemen’s Festival where there was plenty going on. What was great about coming back is that there was almost a totally new crowd. People were catching up with old friends, and we caught back up with the people we had met earlier in the day, and they helped us talk to even more people.

This day will serve, for me, as a reminder that the people of our area are truly the salt of the earth. There is no better way to describe the people in this part of the state and I’m proud to be a part of it.

JUD