Frog Fest is cancelled, but not everything that had been scheduled to take place at Frog Fest is done for the year.
The independent organizing committee that coordinated Waynesville’s late-spring festival decided last month that a May 3 date for the festival wasn’t viable because they couldn’t be assured the flood damage in the city park would be repaired in time for the event. Electrical service wasn’t assured to the pavilions, water-borne trash and rocks continued to cover the park, and the waterlogged ground might not have been able to bear the weight of vendor trailers and the feet of visitors without turning to mud, organizers feared.
However, organizers of one of the planned events have decided to go ahead, though they’ve chosen a different date, time and place.
According to Cecilia Murray, executive director of the Waynesville-St. Robert Chamber of Commerce, the Chamber’s frog race will be held Friday during the golf tournament dinner at Piney Valley Golf Course on Fort Leonard Wood.
Frogs can be adopted at the price of $5 each or three frogs for $10, Murray said, with proceeds going to benefit the Chamber of Commerce. The frog race features a race around a pond and the three winning frogs in the race will be pulled from the water; their “adoptive parents” will win a $100, $75 or $50 savings bond.
Murray won’t need to fear animal rights complaints: the frogs are small plastic figurines that float in the water, not living amphibians. Unlike the annual Duck Race, the competing frogs in the 2008 Frog Race can’t be decorated by their adopters.
“The Chamber doesn’t want to take away from another organization’s event,” Murray said. “We wanted ours to be different.”
The 2008 Frog Race started with a brainstorming session by the Chamber Ambassadors Club to propose and plan events that would raise money for the Waynesville-St. Robert Chamber of Commerce, and Murray said Chamber officials believed the idea was too good to drop just because the Roubidoux Park couldn’t hold the event due to flooding.
“The goal was to have events that no one else was already doing,” Murray said. “Due to the cancellation of Frog Fest this year, the frogs will be unable to race down the Roubidoux as planned, so the Chamber has a frog pool that we will place all the frogs in and the top three winners will be picked out of the water.”
The cancellation of Frog Fest has put a damper on the organizers’ efforts, however, since many people think the frog race has been cancelled along with Frog Fest. Murray said the Chamber goal was to adopt 100 frogs, but only 40 have been adopted so far.
Chamber officials and the event sponsors, Moving the date and time away from last weekend was unavoidable once Frog Fest was cancelled, Murray said.
“Since this was the first year for the Frog Race, we would have a difficult time getting people to attend the race without Frog Fest,” Murray said. “It also involves a lot of set-up work in the water. We decided the best thing was to move it to another Chamber event.”’
Funds will be used for Chamber programs such as the Veterans’ Day parade, community forums, job fairs, and the Choices program. Murray said the 2008 Frog Race is sponsored by Phelps County Regional Medical Center and the three savings bonds have been donated by First State Bank.
Those interested in adopting a frog may call Murray at the Chamber office at 336-5121, or contact her via e-mail at chamber@wsrchamber.com.