Round Top Delays Sesquicentennial
The Round Top Town Council voted in a special meeting on Monday to reschedule the town’s sesquicentennial celebration to May 8, 2021.
The celebration honoring the town’s 150th birthday was supposed to take place less than a month from now, on Aug. 1, Mayor Barry Bone said the recent rise in coronavirus cases spurred him to call the special meeting so Council could consider the issue. The meeting took place via teleconference in order to exercise social distancing.
Councilman Mark Massey said the committee organizing the celebration did not want to outright cancel the event honoring such an important milestone in the town’s history. Instead, they suggested May 8 next year.
“Everyone has worked so hard to get everything coordinated,” Massey said. “So postpone it to that May 8, Mother’s Day weekend time, and one huge perk of postponing it would be cooler weather. Maybe it will draw even more people than we initially thought.”
Councilman Jerry Hinkel supported the date change.
“It would have been ludicrous,” Hinkel said. “Here we are holding teleconference meetings due to the COVID-19 and then we’d invite large crowds into our town two months in a row,” Hinkel said, referring to last weekend’s July 4th Parade and Celebration in Round Top.
Councilman Keith Sharp questioned whether holding the event the day before Mother’s Day would conflict with some people’s plans.
“It probably cuts both ways,” Mayor Bone said. “It might cut out a few people, but then a whole bunch of other people might think it’s a good trip to make.”
Council voted unanimously to change the date to May 8, 2021.
Also during Monday’s meeting, Council voted to form a committee to explore whether the Fall Antiques Show will be able to take place this year. Back in March, County Judge Joe Weber canceled the Spring Antiques Show just as the venue tents were starting to go up. Both Spring and Fall shows attract tens of thousands of shoppers from around the world to buy and sell antiques, crafts and other merchandise.
The Fall show traditionally takes place from mid-September to the first weekend in October. Mayor Bone said that under current crowd size protocols, the Town of Round Top would need to get permission from County Judge Joe Weber and possibly state health officials before any vendors could set up within the town boundary.
Massey suggested that pushing the opening of the Fall show to mid-October could buy time for the virus to slow down its spread. He said the idea of pushing the show back a month to take advantage of cooler weather has been proposed in the past, but it never materialized.
“This may be catalyst to do that,” Massey said. “Obviously, we need to monitor cases and numbers, but it could be a good time to move the show.”
Mayor Bone said many venues resorted to internet sales after the cancellation of the Spring show. He said vendors will likely continue that trend toward online sales.
“I worry if we miss two shows in a row, people will find other ways to sell merchandise and break momentum of this show,” Bone said.
The Council allocated $5,000 for the committee to spend on preparations. That money would be used to pay an expert to draft an official plan for conducting the show. The money may also be used to pay a person to coordinate with all of the show vendors.