Ladies & Gentlemen – start your cameras and mount up!

One thing I always notice when traveling Boone County are the many photo opportunities you find. Whether it’s a lazy drive cross country or enjoying a local festival, our county has all kinds of interesting people, places and things that would make for great photographs.

With this in mind, I’m proud to announce the 1st Annual Boone County Photo Contest! Co-sponsored by the Boone County Convention & Visitors Bureau and our friends at the Lebanon Reporter, the contest is open to residents and visitors who love to take pictures. The contest has 4 different categories – from rural Boone County to festivals and events. There’s no charge to enter and the winner’s photos will be featured on our web site, in the Lebanon Reporter AND in our 2011 Boone County Tourism Guide.

To find out more, please visit our website: www.boonecvb.com for all the contest details.

For those of you who missed it, the Brick Street Market Day in Zionsville was a great event with Main Street packed with over 100 exhibitor booths featuring all manner of art, crafts, antiques, collectibles and apparel. I personally liked the Crazy Birdhouse Man (his name) who created these Rube Goldberg-esque bird houses using everything from baseball mitts to silver plated coffee pitchers. There was also a “yard art” booth with all kinds of brass figurines to place in a garden or lawn. I couldn’t resist taking home a solid brass penguin to add to our perennial garden.

The Market Eve event held the Friday night before Brick Street Market is also an event you don’t want to miss next year. For $20, attendees enjoyed gourmet delights served by local Zionsville restaurants. The Ghyslain chocolates (available at the Sanctuary) were spectacular as were the fresh oysters served up by Noah Grant’s. Over 500 attended this now annual event that offers great tastes, live music and a good time for all.

The BooneCCVB Board awarded grant monies to a variety of Boone County organizations this past week as part of their 2nd grant cycle. One of the most impressive presentations came from the Indiana High School Rodeo Association who will be holding their Indiana Rodeo at the Boone County 4H Fairgrounds – June 12 – 13. Visit http://www.ihsraonline.org/

Dressed in their honest to gosh cowboy hats, big shiny belt buckles and classy western shirts, a trio from the Indiana HS Rodeo Association made one of the best presentations the BooneCCVB Board has ever heard as they explained their event and showed how it attracts visitors from all over Indiana to our county.

These are no sit around the house,video game playing slacker kids, these are talented (and a bit crazy…) young men and women who ride big bulls and bucking broncos, rope runaway cattle and put their barrel-riding horses through paces and obstacles that only countless hours of practice and determination could achieve.

This year, the Indiana HS Rodeo Association has partnered with Boone County’s ARC Rehabilitation Services and added a Special Needs Rodeo event to the weekend that showcases the rodeo skills of mentally & physically challenged kids in the area. Not only do these full time high school students practice constantly to hone their rodeo talents, they also find the time to share the thrill and independence of riding, roping and galloping with this very deserving group.  How cool is that?

Make your plans now to be at the Boone County 4H Fairgrounds in Lebanon on June 12th or 13th and experience for yourself the very exciting sport of high school rodeo competition. I’ll hope to see you there.

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