Busy summer of local event just getting started

If the kids (or you) say there’s nothing to do this summer, you haven’t been paying attention.

Kudos to all the volunteers who made the 21st annual Buffalo Commons Storytelling and Music Festival a resounding success, from the sold-out History’s Mysteries Bus Tour Friday, to the Fox Theatre finale Friday night followed by an afterglow at the Bieroc Cafe.

While the professional performers are paid, of course, one of the community's premier events wouldn’t be possible without numerous volunteers, as well as funding from the Nebraska Arts Council, Humanities Nebraska, Nebraska Cultural Endowment, McCook Arts Council, Red Willow County Visitors Bureau and McCook Community College.

With public funding of cultural events under attack on the national level and state level to a lesser extent, it’s good to consider what we might lose as a community should such funding be eliminated completely.

A planned outdoor trade show, the Buffalo Jones Festival, originally was planned to piggy-back with the Buffalo Commons Festival, but that event left with the former economic development director.

We hope you made it to at least some of the Buffalo Commons event, as well as interactive Children’s Mobile Museum that visited late last week as part of the state’s 150th and McCook’s 135th anniversary.

True to its vow to make McCook a better place to “live, work and play,” the McCook Area Chamber of Commerce plans a number of events throughout the summer, including a street dance July 7 and another Sept. 23, a Crazy Days Car Show on July 8 and a 5K run July 22, as well as a barbecue competition at the Red Willow County Fairgrounds on July 8.

The Prairie Roots Festival will return Saturday and Sunday, July 29-30 with the Hear Nebraska Concert and beer garden Saturday at Barnett Park, a disc golf tournament and skate event at the Bolles Canyon Skatepark.

Soul/funk band Josh Hoyer and Soul Colossal will be familiar to Prairie Roots Festival veterans, as well as viewers of NBC’s The Voice as he and his band return to McCook Aug. 10 for the second ticket on MNB McCook’s Hot Summer Nights free concert series at Norris Park.

The concert series kicks off July 27 with the Dylan Bloom Band, voted one of the “Top Ten Bands you should see live” by the Lincoln Journal Star, delivering a “Red Dirt Country” sound.

Both concerts are free and start at 6:30 p.m.

And those events are just the tip of the iceberg, with numerous town festivals and community events scattered through Southwest Nebraska and Northwest Kansas.

Keep your eyes on these pages for upcoming events and make sure to turn out to support them.