 TheBasementShop.com is the premier spot for the beefiest bases, acoustics, drum kits, even ukuleles with a wide variety of new and used musical instruments and accessories from D-Drum, Luna, Dean, Specter, Warwick, Sadowski. Head over to TheBasementShop.com to find the gear you need to rock out. TheBasementShop.com. Monday, March 13th, Governor Andy Beshear awarded $111,674,000 to the Prestonsburg Tourism Commission to support travel marketing and promotion. This award came from the 75 million ARPA fund allocated in 2022 to boost the state's tourism industry and economy. It was really historic and amazing as earlier this year Kentucky legislation they approved 75 million dollars of ARPA funding specifically for tourism in Kentucky. It's a really a strong statement that says we're putting our money behind our belief that Kentucky is a premier destination and we know that and we're excited to have additional funding to really lift that up out there too. So we were able to apply in a couple different tranches is what they were called. So one was as a destination marketing organization which is where we received just under $112,000 and we'll be adding in a match to that and we're really excited that that funding is specifically used for marketing initiatives for our community. So we're really excited to do programs and campaigns that have been dreams of ours forever and and now that doors open for us to really expand into so we're going to be targeting new visitors really lifting the current visitor experience and just competing at a whole new level for Eastern Kentucky as a whole. $55,000 in ARPA funds were also distributed to the Paintsville Tourism Commission. Every dollar will be used for marketing to increase tourism in Eastern Kentucky. So post COVID I know everybody was every I saw a great job in general you know one of the first things that we cut were were dream things right and on essentials that we looked at but when you look at destination marketing everything's essential because you're always trying to attract the new visitors. So this funding is the first time that Kentucky has supported tourism to this degree in this level as a full industry and in Eastern Kentucky hospitality is the third leading industry for our region. So to see this kind of support to see us continue to bring new faces in and new dollars in our goal as an organization is for every dollar that we spend in marketing to have a $7 return in our community. So if you look at this we're really excited for the economic impact it's going to have. Reporting for Mountain Top News I'm Brianna Robinson.