MILESTONE CELEBRATIONS

Nick Hemphill | Courtesy Photo An aerial view of the mile-long block party held on Aug. 18 was estimated to bring out between 5,000 to 7,000 people. The event was a team effort put on by The Hutchinson Chamber of Commerce, Hutchinson Recreation, the City of Hutchinson and the Reno County Museum.

Milestone

Hailea Redinger | Reporter Staff | Designer Itstarted with a really small group casually discussing the 150th celebration that was coming up for both the city of Hutchinson and the county. What did they want to do and how were they going to make it special?

The conversations occurred by virtual Zoom meetings due to COVID-19. The pandemic became the reason for postponing the big party but that didn’t stop it from happening altogether.

In early 2020, Rebekah Keasling, Director of Public Information and Community Engagement for the city of Hutchinson, along with her colleagues and some other organizations started to talk about Hutchinson’s 150th birthday celebration. It would be coming up in a couple of years and they wanted to start brainstorming ideas to make it special.

Fast forward to early 2022. They all got together again to start thinking of ideas, and again, Covid was still high in numbers so they were a little hesitant to over plan. One of the ideas that had come up was a mile-long dinner which they had actually done to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Hutchinson.

The group began to grow, adding other organizations to the planning committee and brainstorming along the way. Instead of a mile-long dinner they decided to go with a mile-long block party. Different groups adopted blocks along Main Street to pull off the event.

The activities and displays were up to the businesses and organizations on that block. Hutchinson Community College had a booth near the college’s Peel Center. They gave away hundreds of items such as sunglasses, baseball hats, Duke baseball cards, jar grippers and bag tags. In addition to winning prizes from a Plinko game, booth visitors could play a giant Connect Four game or view photos of the college throughout history.

“It felt amazing walking down Main Street that night. Every time I passed another person who had worked on the event we shared smiles and congratulations and talked about how exciting it was, how it was everything we hoped for and more,” Keasling said.

The more historical celebration took place on Monday, August 15, at the city hall where they unearthed a time capsule that was buried to celebrate the centennial in 1972. After reviewing the contents, they buried a new time capsule to be opened in 2072.

“I had a really good time working on the time capsule. It's not everyday you get to open one,” David Reed, Reno County Museum Chief Curator, said. “As curator, I didn't get to handle everything first, that was for the archivists, Thomas and Ceeley. Once they got everything sorted and cataloged I was allowed to work on it. The dozen letters that were included were fun to read. Everyone that we contacted let us keep a copy or the original of the letters inside. Some of them had really good family stories behind them and that made me happy to help people reconnect.”

Items were collected weeks prior from residences and organizations and the city itself to include in the new time capsule. The event was live streamed for everyone to see.

The Reno County Museum and Historical Society were huge partners in making the celebration a success as they know what's been done before and have historical records.

Celebrations like these are about community involvement and showcasing pride across Hutchinson. The city now awaits the next event in 2072.

›Janae DeWeese | Courtesy Photo The downtown celebration brought many businesses out including Hutchinson Community College who set up tables to encourage the public to gather information and win prizes.

celebration

The city of Hutchinson and its residents gathered to honor the people, the town and its businesses throughout history.