What a busy weekend!

Wow, my first child is now a high school graduate. My older daughter graduated Steelville High School on Sunday. She’ll be headed to Mizzou in the fall.
My uncle asked me if it made me feel old to have my daughter graduating. I had to admit it did a little, until he pointed out that this was the second graduation he had attended for one of his grandkids. I guess I’m no that old after all.
It was quite a busy weekend for me, starting on Friday. Not only was I dealing with graduation, but I also had to help with a big church meeting, which was being hosted by Mound Ridge Camp and Retreat Center, which is located west of Steelville near Maramec Spring.
I spent two long days at Mound Ridge starting at 7 a.m. Friday morning when I went out there to cook breakfast for the other volunteers who had come out for the day to get ready for Saturday’s meeting of the Giddings-Lovejoy Presbytery. I fixed bacon and eggs, biscuits and some good homemade gravy (yes, I can make my own gravy). I think everyone was well satisfied.
Then we worked all day getting ready for Saturday’s meeting, taking just a short break for lunch. Finally that evening, all of us went to Sybil’s in St. James for supper. It was my first time there and I have to say the food and service was spectacular. If you haven’t been there yet, be sure and give Sybil’s a try soon.
On Saturday, it was back to Mound Ridge to help parks cars, transport people around, give tours and the like. I also had to make a couple of brief presentations during the meeting. When that was over I went to a graduation party for one of my cousins. The food three was also great, as they had fried deer, turkey and pork tenderloin!
Of course, Sunday was graduation, but a lot of work had to be done beforehand to get ready for my daughter’s party, which we hosted along with one for my fiancé’s nephew back out at Mound Ridge. It was the only place big enough to hold us all as about 75 came for supper after the graduation ceremonies.
I think everybody had a real great time, but it was nice to finish things up at 6:30 p.m. Sunday night and get home for some well-deserved R&R.
This is also going to be a busy week as we have an early deadline due to the holiday and we’ll also be distributing out Steelville Area Tourism Guide on Thursday and Friday. It’s going to be nice to have three days off this weekend and have nothing officially planned to do. The smallmouth had better be on guard.
Enjoy your holiday. I know I will.

Visitor Guide headed to the printer

I’ve just finished up one of my favorite sections of the year—the Steelville Area Visitors Guide. It is slated to hit the street just before Memorial Day weekend.
I have to say I think this year’s Visitor Guide is the best one we’ve every put together. I also think it’s the biggest one we’ve every done.
You won’t be receiving the Visitor Guide in your weekly newspaper as it is designed to be strictly for tourists. A copy of the guide will be posted on our website in PDF format soon so you can check it out. The hard copies will be distributed to those businesses that advertised in the guide, with additional copies going to the Steelville and Cuba visitors centers.
This is always one of my favorite sections to put together each year. There are a lot of good stories, some great-looking ads and lots of color this year. It was, however, a lot of hard work.
I think the deadline for this year’s Visitors Guide was about two weeks ago, and I just got the whole think finalized and sent to the press this morning. After it gets printed in multiple sections, it will have to be collated and then taken to a print shop in Rolla where it will be stitched (stapled) and trimmed before getting distributed on May 24 and 25.
I hope you enjoy this year’s Steelville Area Visitors Guide. Be sure to watch for it coming to the website soon.