DODGE CITY — The town of Dodge City has decided that plans to resume its annual Dodge City Day festival this year were unfeasible, but hope to continue the tradition in 2025.
The festival began in 2012 as a way to celebrate the anniversary of the town’s incorporation. Dodge City continued the tradition each June through 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic halted its plans for the 2020 festival.
Last year would have marked a milestone for the town looking to celebrate its 30th anniversary, but a lack of vendor participation and scheduling difficulties with entertainment resulted in a last-minute cancellation.
The town discussed the possibility of resuming the event in September during Thursday’s town council meeting, but even with the proposed rescheduling, councilmember Heather Langley expressed her reservations with organizing a large scale event on such short notice.
“I’m actually concerned that we’ve waited too long and we won’t be able to get vendors and things like that. We may have missed our mark,” Langley said.
Councilmembers Jerry Lynn and Teeara Johns agreed with Langley before the council agreed to postpone the event. Mayor Jason Burney did express that the event would be a priority for the town in 2025 and said he intended to begin next year’s preparations as early as January.
Receiving updates on events such as next year’s Dodge City Day may soon be much easier for residents of the town after the council agreed to enroll in the mass notification system, Everbridge. The software was recently adopted by the Cullman County Emergency Management Agency and the town approved to form a “group” under the agency. The system will allow the town to notify participating residents of upcoming events via text message for an annual rate of $.23 per resident. Town Clerk Vicki Ogletree said Dodge City’s annual rate would fall less than $130.
Some residents who are already signed up to receive emergency text alerts from EMA may already be pre-enrolled, but will be able to easily cancel the alerts by replying “STOP” to one of the messages. EMA Director Tim Sartin said he will be discussing the system more at-length with The Times next week.
In other business the council:
Held the first reading for an ordinance which will approve the annual “Back to School” tax holiday, scheduled for July 19 — 21.Approved Burney to look into the possibility of conducting a cost and engineering survey for more information on what would be required to extend the town’s sewer system.