Let’s

Weekly update #336 6/28/2026 to 7/4/2026

Yesterday at noon the church bells rang through Seymour to celebrate America’s 250th. This, along with many other events over the last several weeks, was part of the local celebration. Before that though, let me share some of the rest of my week serving as mayor of the best small town in America.

I spent some time with several departments this week. One of them was filling in as a driver for Transit while drivers attended training. Some passengers don’t say much while others will chat your ear off if you return the same. Topics varied; we talked about work, we talked about a new apartment, we chatted about living in long term recovery, and so much more. While I know this isn’t always the case, one theme was in every rider I had this week, and that was that they appreciated the ride and the service overall. To the Transit team, thank you for providing the service you do for just $25 a month. To the passengers, thank you for the good conversations.

This week, I met with a nonprofit from the region that is looking at expanding their services to Seymour. They still have a lot of items to consider before they decide but wanted to meet to learn more about the community. Thank you to the founder for considering us as an expansion area, and I hope the connections I was able to provide help as you look to the future.

Members of the community have hosted several events over the last few weeks that were part of America's 250th Celebration. From Airplane Ride Day at Freeman Municipal Airport to Seymour Noon Lions Disc Dash at Freeman Field Recreational Area later today, there have been eleven events connected. Live music was an option a few times, a showing of The Best We’ve Got: The Carl Erskine Story with director Ted Green introducing the movie and doing a question and answer session afterwards, Cars & Guitars returned in 2026 in downtown and had a good show regardless of weather concerns, free pool parties, a pickleball tournament, free food at a community picnic was provided by Outreach Ministries Seymour, and so much more. The 4th started out with a 5k walk/run then at noon bells and whistles rang out to celebrate. The day was finished with live music and fireworks at Freeman Field. With all this and more though, the conversation has often turned to how do we grow the crowds? The community picnic included fun with Seymour Fire Department as they set up a sample run of the Little Hot Shots Challenge so community youth could get a few practice runs in before the main event this fall. As I said before, food was free courtesy of Outreach Ministries Seymour. Honey White rocked into the night from the band stand and the crowd was ok but not great. I found advertising as far back as early May for the multi-event flyer and into April for individual events. Department heads and myself have spoken about it on the radio for several months. Many ideas have been thrown out during conversations about why attendance is low, and I am sure they are valid pieces of the puzzle. Whatever the reason, I hope as you hit the search engine to see what is going on that you don’t catch yourself saying “there is nothing to do around here” because we have had, as we usually do, tons to do around here. If disc golf is your thing, I hope to see you at the Disc Dash later today at Freeman Field Recreational Complex Disc Golf Course supporting the Seymour Noon Lions. If it isn’t your thing, come on out and grab a drink or some lunch with a local food truck. Either way, let’s have some fun supporting a local event and local service organization. Today, I will leave you with a thought from Jim Rohn, “My mentor said, ‘Let’s go do it’, not ‘You go do it.’ How powerful when someone says, ‘Let’s!’”