Picnic is a time to relax

By BRENDA S. EDWARDS 
Staff Writer 

The Saturday evening picnic has become one of the highlights at the annual Great American Brass Band Festival and this year is no different. Picnickers from as far away as Florida have table reservations. 

The picnic has a two-fold purpose — to allow families and friends to spend an evening together and to raise money for the festival. 

“The picnic is actually the only event that makes money,” says Pat Liebschutz, picnic organizer. “Everything else is free. It is the major fund-raiser for the festival, with the exception of donations.” 

This is Liebschutz’s second time to be in charge of the picnic. She planned the picnic for the first Brass Band Festival in 1990. 

“I’m glad to do it again,” Liebschutz says. 

She says people reserve tables for adults and their children. “It’s like old home week for some kids.” 

The guests go all out with decorations for the festival. In past years, decoration themes have included cowboys and Indians, Disney characters, birthday parties, old-fashioned picnic, patriotic, Australia, M&M’s, and Aladdin’s Lamp to the elegant Julia Child recipes. Some tables have been simple while others have taken lots of planning. Awards will be given for the most creative table decorations, including categories for Sousa Award (grand prize), the Off-Centre Award (most humorous), Great American Brass Band Festival Award (brass band theme), Coming Home to Freedom Award, and Most Creative Award, plus two judges’ awards for most whimsical and best color. Prizes are four Brass Band Festival posters for each table. 

Guests will begin decorating tables at 5 p.m. for the 6 p.m. picnic. Each table seats eight guests. 

Carol Weber of Florida looks forward to her first band festival. She is bringing the family — husband, mother, daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren. She discovered the event in a travel magazine while looking for a place to spend a vacation close to her daughter, who lives in Cincinnati. 

They will have a table at the picnic, where her grandchildren will have plenty of room to play. 

Kay Berggren, executive director of the Danville/Boyle County Convention & Visitors’ Bureau, looks forward the to festival because it’s a time when her sisters, Rita Walker of Janesville, Wis., and Ruth Fredericksen of Georgetown, Texas, come to visit. 

“They love the festival,” says Berggren. “They also are great ambassadors at home, where they spread the word about the festival.” 

And they help out with the picnic meal. 

Walker has been to all the Brass Band Festivals except the first one. “I come and enjoy. I help out where there is a need.” 

She especially likes the picnic on Saturday. 

“Kay and Tom have a table near the front of the bandstand. One year we had a mix-up and I ended up sitting with the Ragtimers. I often go to the history conference and had met them there.” 

Walker sometimes feels like a welcoming committee and finds it interesting meeting people. 

“During the band festival, Danville takes on a different flare,” she says. “It’s like coming from a busy life and stepping back into another era and place on the grounds at Centre.” 

It reminds her of the time when she was a young woman and went to the park, where bands would play. “It’s a great opportunity to hear different types of bands.” 

The band festival gives Fredericksen a chance to enjoy some old Americana, and a leisure time for toe-tapping, sing-a-longs and kids dancing. She has found, over the years, she and her sisters are not as picky about table decorations at they were in the past.