People crowded onto Main Street waiting in line to talk with Santa Claus or to skate on a temporary rink, to get signatures from a professional baseball player or to ride a pony, to take a carriage ride or a train ride.
Cartoon characters walked among an estimated 3,000 people who turned out for this past weekend’s Children’s Hometown Holiday in downtown Wapakoneta.
Started five years ago in the effort to help stimulate business downtown, the event’s primary organizer, Elaine Poppe said the big crowd made it the largest turnout the event has had yet.
A solar project which will convert approximately 20 acres of city ground into megawatts of energy is expected to be completed sometime next spring, but one city administrator says he would like to see some progress made now.
“I would like to see it moving a little faster,” Mayor Rodney Metz said Sunday on the eve of Wapakoneta City Council’s first December meeting. “I would like to see the ground broke and I would like to some infrastructure going in at the site.”
While Christmas is a time of celebration for most families, for others it can be a time of despair.
Bayliff & Eley Funeral Homes held a memorial event at its location on Lincoln Highway, or State Route 501, to help families get by that first Christmas without a loved one.
“The first Christmas without a loved one is hard,” funeral director Dick Eley said. “We started this in hope of hope of helping them get through. Hopefully we can help with some of those families.
