The Parkersburg Area Jaycees is making a comeback.
The local Jaycees chapter, established in 1939 as the first in West Virginia, resumed meeting in early 2011 after shutting down in 2004. And now the Parkersburg Area chapter is climbing toward its membership goal and undertaking community service projects.
The Parkersburg Jaycees, for male and female professionals 18 to 40 years old, has 22 members with a goal of reaching 36 members before long, said chapter president Adam Kennedy, a certified public accountant with Suttle & Stalnaker.
The Parkersburg Jaycees meets at 5:30 p.m. on the second Thursday of the month at the Blennerhassett Hotel. Prospective members are welcome to attend the meetings, Kennedy said.
"The Blennerhassett Hotel has been kind to us," Kennedy said.
Chapter members are accountants, bankers, teachers, nurses and other professionals. The organization provides opportunities for networking and volunteering, and teaches personal development, Kennedy said.
The group is planning a kickball tournament in July to benefit Habitat for Humanity, partnering with the Chamber of Commerce of the Mid-Ohio Valley for a chili cookoff and concert at Riverfront Park on Oct. 6 and sponsoring a 5K run at City Park on Oct. 27.
The Jaycees helped with the Taste of Parkersburg last September and plans to be involved with the downtown food/wine/music festival again this year.
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The audience attending the Actors Guild of Parkersburg's performance of "Tuesdays With Morrie" Sunday and June 16 will be invited to ask questions of the two actors and special guests.
The play deals with writer Mitch Albom's conversations with his favorite professor, Morrie Schwartz, who is dying of ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease. Participating in last Saturday's talkback, or question-and-answer session, after the play were Bill Thomas, chaplain at Amedisys Hospice, and Jane Couch, whose husband, Dave, died of ALS.
Kathy Hart, clinical manager at Amedisys Hospice, will answer questions after the 2:30 p.m. Sunday matinee, said director Charlie Matthews, while Couch and Thomas are expected to return for the 8 p.m. June 16 performance. The audience last week posed questions to cast members John Lee, who plays Morrie, and Josh Martin, who plays Mitch. Thomas and Couch discussed end-of-life and caregiver issues.
A member of the audience said she enjoyed the talkback because it allowed her to decompress after the emotional play, Matthews said.
Matthews praised Lee and Martin for their outstanding performances in the two-actor show, which runs 90 minutes without an intermission.
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Mark July 6-8 on your calendar. They are the dates for the "Point Park Music Weekend" at the new amphitheater in Parkersburg.
The free music weekend opens on Friday night with a performance by River City Brass Band from Pittsburgh, followed by the Mountain State Brass Band from Charleston on Saturday night, and the featured American Wind Symphony Orchestra from Mars, Pa., Sunday night, along with fireworks. All performances begin at 8 p.m.
The American Wind Symphony Orchestra will bring its floating arts center to Point Park on a tour that begins June 18 in Columbus, Miss., and stops in Ravenswood July 5-7.
While in Parkersburg, the wind symphony also will provide mini-concerts for patrons and sponsors of the event, said Nicole Slattery, marketing manager at the Blennerhassett Hotel. Sponsors so far of the music weekend are the Ross Foundation, the Bernard McDonough Foundation, the Sisters of St. Joseph Charitable Fund, the city of Parkersburg and the downtown taskforce.
Contact Paul LaPann at plapann@newsandsentinel.com
