Banquet Honors County's Volunteers

RISON - Community leaders and volunteers spent Friday evening hearing new ideas and honoring their own volunteers of the past year during the return of the Celebrate Cleveland County Banquet - the first since 2020. Beth Brumley, the executive director of Main Street El Dorado, was the guest speaker at the Kickstart Cleveland County event. Brumley spoke to members of each group under the organization, as well as Rison Mayor Charles Roberts, County Judge Jimmy Cummings and State Rep. Sonia Barker. The banquet is the first of several events throughout the year that will celebrate the 150th birthday of Cleveland County. Brumley shared tips and creative ideas her organization has used to revitalize and rebrand the city of El Dorado. While El Dorado operates under the Main Street Arkansas program, Brumley said many of those pointers can be adapted at different levels to work in places like Rison, Kingsland, New Edinburg, Woodlawn and Cleveland County as a whole. "One of the things Beth excels at is event planning and promotions," said Douglas Boultinghouse of Rison Shine, who reached out to Brumley to speak at the event. "She oversees a massive fall festival in El Dorado (MusicFest), and to see how she has grown that festival, and learn from her experience is something I want to bring to the Rison in the Fall Festival and beyond." Brumley also spoke of the importance of organizations work-ing together to accomplish larger goals. Boultinghouse said this is something the Kickstart Cleveland County groups of Rison Shine, Re-New-ing Edinburg, Kickstart Kingsland, Cleveland County Fair, Pioneer Village, Community Theater, the Cleveland County Youth Sports Association, and the currently inactive Wake Up Woodlawn have attempted in the past. "Most of our volunteer groups are comprised of the same volunteers, so the overlap tends to take away from the number of hands on deck," he said. Kickstart Cle...