Salem City Councilman Jim Koehler thinks the city should have a festival to remember its most well-known citizen William Jennings Bryan. He brought up the idea at Monday’s city council meeting.
“Last year at this time, I attended the Scopes trial at the Scopes Festival in Dayton, Tennessee. I thought we do nothing for Bryan and he’s right here from town. I’ve been talking around and doing some thinking. We want to have a Bryan Festival possibly in May. Do that for Bryan and Scopes. We have a lot of history here, with Scopes graduating from Salem Community High School. There are a lot of things we can do. So we want to get some people in the community invested in that and get some things going and promote our local person who is probably the most popular person from Salem, Illinois.”
Koehler is looking into the idea of reenactment of the Scopes Monkey Trial. He says it would be too soon to hold the festival next year.
Koehler also wants to address the need for a stage cover at the band stage in Bryan Memorial Park.
“Our park is such a beautiful place to be. If we were to put a shelter over the top of that I think there would be a lot of churches and businesses that would utilize the park more because we have the stage there. And you have the stage below that you could use for dressing rooms like they used to at one time. During the Soldier’s and Sailor’s reunion that was used every night for hours.”
Koehler will be talking to those in the construction business for ideas on how best to accomplish the shelter.
He notes money will be key to both projects moving forward. Koehler will be working with the city’s new Economic Development Director Leah Dellicarpini on trying to find grant dollars to fund both efforts.
