 The Ginny Wiley Festival draws large groups of people to downtown Prestonsburg where it is known for carnival rides, great food and live music. But not everyone knows the story behind this legendary festival. This festival is named after Ginny Wiley of course and most people probably know her name from our state park and not many people may know this but our state park right here is actually the only state park in Kentucky named after a female and certainly a very deserving one so without going into the entire story because they can catch that actually at the festival this year with the Ginny Wiley story. She was one of the best and greatest pioneer women to come out of Kentucky and eastern Kentucky right here in the mountains. She was held captive, lost most of her family and she just kept fighting strong for nearly a year. She was able to escape captivity, make it back home and to continue to flourish and her story is just absolutely incredible and what we're really excited about a new addition to this year's festival is there will be, if people remember the Ginny Wiley story known and loved here at the amphitheater they're going to be doing little mini versions of that so they're going to be doing monologues and a variety of different times throughout the weekend and then also a chance for kids to come out and get to work with some of those performers and different activities so really learn the history and then get involved in themselves. This festival is very unique because it offers a variety of name brand goods but also a designated tent for handcrafted pieces from the local community. And so you can actually go to one spot if you're looking for that really unique item or that local boutique you can go directly to a spot there and shop tons of great handmade things. I know Christmas is right around the corner. This is where I do a lot of my Christmas shopping. And then also we have another entire lot dedicated to a variety of different festival vendors that may have those brand names that you're looking for and items that you look for at festivals every year as well. So a little bit of everything and the way that they've designed it this year is to make it easy as possible to find what you're looking for because our festival kind of takes up all of downtown. So to make it super easy and able to shop very easily. But this really is a small town community festival so you have things like a pumpkin derby which is just amazing. You have front porch pickin' that comes out from the community. You have bands that come out from the community. You have a pet contest and so there's so many things that you know and love from a festival but also there's all these little moments that highlight the best of Prestonsburg and Foley County and really just ways to bring your community together. When you see all these different kids and parents coming out because they've decorated their pumpkin and they're going to race it, it's just to me it's the best of small town being highlighted and just having fun with. For days we've got what looks like great weather on the horizon. It's feeling like fall time finally which means it's the perfect time for a good fall festival. There's tons of events going on so if anybody's looking for what that special event they want to check out they can go to www.jwfestival.com and see a full list of events. Definitely take in some of this really exciting weekend going on. Come on out.