The parade, this year themed “Celebrating Freedom,” highlights Saturday with a 10 a.m. start as it runs from Frisch’s Big Boy on North Main Street to Kroger on South Main Street. The festival committee decided to diverge from the previous tradition of having a grand marshal for the parade and instead will invite all those who have served in the armed forces to take part in the parade.
Jessamine County Parks and Recreation will be hosting the second Jessamine Jamboree Cornhole Tournament for Ralph and Ryan scholarships Saturday, with registration beginning at 11 a.m.
The fifth annual Canine 2K for a Cure run/walk will occur prior to the parade Saturday morning.
Throughout the weekend, several nearby organizations will be hosting events, including the a Jessamine County Beef-Cattle Association cook-out, St. Luke’s Catholic Church’s fall festival and the Nicholasville United Methodist Church’s bake sale and yard sale.
Nicholasville Christian Church will be hosting a classic car show.
The committee also plans on offering a talent show Saturday. Registration for Nicholasville Now’s Got Talent will be at 5 p.m., and the competition is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m.
The festival committee has redesigned the layout of the festival to make this year’s Jessamine Jamboree safer, moving some vendors off the city’s main thoroughfare.
“We made the decision to take the food vendors off of Main Street due to safety reasons,” Coleman said. “When you have the traffic of the festival and then you have the emergency vehicles and you’ve got food trailers in the parking spaces along Main Street plus foot traffic, we just deemed it unsafe.”
Arts and crafts vendors will still be present in the lawn around the courthouse, Coleman said, and the festival has overflow space available if more vendors than expected participate.
For more information about the 2010 Jessamine Jamboree, call Nicholasville Now at 859-881-3820 or visit http://www.nicholasvillenow.org.
