By Rorye Hatcher | Daily Reporter
GREENFIELD — County tourism director Brigette Cook Jones has been making her mark on the image of Hancock County tourism.
First, it was a new county emblem hearkening back to James Whitcomb Riley and the county’s literary lineage. Then, it was a new website, visitinhancock.org, with an updated database of things to do within the county’s borders.
Next, Jones plans a variety show the weekend of the Riley Festival, Oct. 4 to 7, the first event organized through the Hancock County Tourism Commission.
The tourism commission, a county committee comprising a volunteer corps of seven people, typically grants funding to nonprofit organizations that host events that bring people to Hancock County. Because the grant funding comes from the county’s innkeepers tax, which is charged to local motel guests, the commission has focused its grants on events that generate hotel stays, said Jones.
The Riley Showcase, held Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 4 to 7 at the H.J. Ricks Centre for the Arts, 122 W. Main St., will feature at least two headline events: on Friday, country-western singer and Johnny Cash tribute Gary West, and on Saturday, Mark Carter will perform as Sammy Terry, a tribute to his father, Robert Carter, the original Sammy Terry, a late-night TV horror host for a movie series on Channel 4 in the 1960s.
The two headline events, or “Thrills and Chills,” will be ticketed events, Jones said. Ticket prices have not been determined yet.
West, a county native, boasts a full band and a history loaded with country-western chops.
His Nashville journey began in 1988 when he toured with Johnny Cash and backed him up for a 30-day tour though most of Texas, according to his website, garywestmusic.com.
Later that year, Gary played on the Grand Ole Opry, a weekly country music stage show in Nashville, Tennessee, for the first time with his hero, and Grand Ole Opry Star, Del Reeves.
Several other events will be offered free of charge through sponsorships, including a performance by the Brandywine Wind, a showing of the Emmy-award winning documentary “James Whitcomb Riley: Hoosier Poet,” a story told in part by local experts, and two performances of Debbie Wilkerson’s Spooktacular Review, Halloween-themed performances by Wilkerson Dance Studio.
Specific times for many of the events are still being narrowed down, Jones said, but updated information and tickets will be available at the Hancock County Visitors Center, 119 W. North St., Greenfield.
The objective of the new variety show, held concurrent with the Riley Festival, is to encourage a new and different crowd to attend the festival, Jones said.
“I have planned to put some significant advertising money into promoting this,” Jones said. “I’m hoping it will bring a whole different avenue of people to come to the Riley Festival. We get a lot of the same people coming every year, and I think we need to branch out a little bit.”
Jones said she hopes the name recognition for the headliners, West and Sammy Terry, will encourage folks from Indianapolis and beyond to travel to Hancock County.
Sammy Terry has performed sold-out shows at a Halloween festival in Irvington in the past, and Jones hopes the early-October performance will draw similar crowds.
