Emporia and Emporia Main Street will receive four state awards tonight in Manhattan at the Governor’s Awards of Excellence on Main Street dinner.
Mary Helmer of Emporia Main Street said each year the Kansas Main Street organization accepts nominations for what people think are the best features of their communities. An outside panel then visits each community and selects the award winners.
Helmer said there will be at least 50 awards given at tonight’s banquet, which starts at 6 p.m.
“Tonight we get four of them,” she said this morning on her way to Manhattan. “It’s so nice to see people recognized for the hard work they do, not just locally, but in the state. It’s exciting. It’s quite an honor to get a governor’s award.”
Emporia will receive awards in the following categories:
- Outstanding fund raising for “The Taste” event. Emporia had its second Taste event in April and received rave reviews from more than 400 attendees. The event is organized and staffed by volunteers from the Emporia Main Street board of directors and organization committee. Seven wineries participated this year.
- Image-building activity: In September of 2005, Emporia Main Street expanded the image campaign from radio ads, commercial on cable and newspaper to include billboards. Emporia Main Street partnered with local businesses to promote activities in Emporia. Twelve billboards, one for each month of the year, were purchased. The spots were sold to business sponsors. The cost split between Main Street and the sponsors.
- Outstanding merchant: Reeble’s is being honored as the outstanding merchant. The Emporia grocery chain was recently recognized as the Emporia Main Street business of the year. Founded in 1883 by Rudolph Reeble, Reeble’s is the oldest grocery business in the state with family members still operating the business — four generations in the last 123 years. Reeble’s Country Mart has been a member of Emporia Main Street since its inception and assists with a variety of events and activities. Reeble’s employees also donate their time and talents serving on the board of directors for Emporia Main Street.
- Main Street advocate award — Steve Commons will receive the Main Street advocate award. Commons served as the city manager of Emporia from 1986 to September 2006. The award citation says Commons was a strong supporter of the Emporia Main Street program by the following actions: Supportive of city funding of the Emporia Main Street program; providing city staff time to work on various projects and activities; volunteering his personal time toward Emporia Main Street projects and activities; assisting with establishing a city code team to help with downtown redevelopment projects; helping secure private funding for downtown Christmas decorations; and helping secure grants for the downtown Streetscape and clock tower projects.