Signs seek to bring town together
CORRECTION: Date of hot dog event is Sept. 27, not 26.
Staff writer
Mike Powers, mayoral candidate and president of Marion Advancement Campaign and Marion Kiwanis, said he hopes to bring people together so Marion can start to heal.
He says the community needs a reason to come together after an Aug. 11 raid on the newspaper office, the homes of its co-owners and councilwoman Ruth Herbel, and the death of newspaper co-owner Joan Meyer the following day.
“After all of the trial and tribulation of the last six weeks or month, I was in Lawrence and I saw a sign that said, ‘Hang in there, world,’” Powers said. “My thought was, in this town we needed somebody to say, ‘Hang in there, Marion.’”
He woke up the next morning with that sign on his mind.
He wanted some kind of rallying point that everyone could get around, he said.
MAC and Kiwanis will sponsor a hot dog feed at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 27, at Central Park.
“It’s a humble event,” he said. “This event is not going to be a pulled-pork full-meal event.”
People can bring a lawn chair and visit or just get hot dogs and leave, he said.
“If a small town is going to survive, there has to be working together,” Powers said.
He admitted the get-together probably won’t solve things, but he hopes it will be a start in that direction.
He called the town’s three banks. They agreed to buy 150 signs, which he took to community businesses Thursday and Friday in the hope people would put the signs in their windows and yards to promote the idea that Marion is “stronger together.”
MAC will pay for the food, and Kiwanis members will cook and serve. There will be no program
“I purposely don’t want a program,” Powers said.
Because of an editing error, the date for the hot dog feed incorrectly was reported as Tuesday instead of Wednesday in some editions of the Record.