 The City of Pikeville is preparing for its bicentennial celebration, better known as the Pikeville 200 Project. Each month of 2024 will showcase a different event all in the name of celebrating Pikeville and its history. Mountaintop News spoke with event organizers to get a sneak peek at what's to come. Well, in 2024 we're kicking off our bicentennial in January and we're going to celebrate all year through the end of December. The actual anniversary date of our celebration is December the 28th, which is a terrible time to celebrate, but there'll be special events in February with Spirits of Pikeville past. Of course, we'll be helping to celebrate hillbilly days. In the summer we'll have some special events and in September we have a new event to Pikeville with the Long Hunters, which are Long Hunters are the original people, original white settlers who came here. And then we'll end up at the end of the year with a big gala and a big drone show. So we're really excited about what we have to offer. Many hours of research and labor have been invested in the Pikeville 200 Project. This has led to a better understanding of what makes the city unique. Pikeville is special. It's different than other small coal mining towns in Central Appalachia. And one of the things we've discovered as we've been planning these activities and events is that one of the main reasons for that is education and the focus on education that the people who came before us made a priority for their children. And that has not only resulted in Big Sandy Community and Technical College, U-Pike, an excellent Pikeville Independent School system, but has also affected the kinds of people that we can attract to Pikeville to come here and live because they want their children to have the opportunity for good schools. Reporting for Mountain Top News, I'm Nick Collum.