Thank You!—It has been a real challenge this summer hosting our events and activities with the record heat and all the smoke in our valley. While the turn-out was understandably down a bit from previous years, those attending enjoyed some very interesting and informative History Saturday in the Cemetery programs and Tuesday Evening Cemetery Strolls. I’d like to offer my sincere appreciation to our wonderful Docents and to the other volunteers who helped and managed to keep the events on schedule. Thank you to all of you who were able to attend these events as your attendance was very much appreciated. I also want to thank our marker cleaning volunteers, who despite the heat and smoke, kept hard at work cleaning headstones and other monuments through the summer months. My gratitude and appreciation goes to John McGlothlin for all his help in repairing and restoring markers in various sections of the cemetery.

Meet the Pioneers 2017—Well, we are now only days away from this year’s production of Meet the Pioneers, a very popular Jacksonville event. In case you don’t know, we start work on the show in January, so you can imagine how excited we all are at this point, and anxious to share all of our hard work with this year’s audience. Thank you for all the wonderful and positive comments about the return of Meet the Pioneers after having taken a year off. It promises to be a great show and I hope those of you who planned on attending were able to purchase tickets. The tour dates are Friday, October 6 and Saturday, October 7. You can check our website to see what tour times may still be available at www.friendsjvillecemetery.org and look under Reservations/Tickets Meet the Pioneers – 2017. Thank you and our sincerest appreciation to all of you who have already purchased tickets for supporting our organization and the work we do. Enjoy the show and have a great fall season.

Meet the Pioneers 2012 – Photo by Ron Moore.