Black Walnut Festival honors police

Spencer Mayor Terry Williams said the decision to honor police came in light of the August 28 incident where two West Virginia state troopers were killed and one Roane county deputy was wounded.

“We had just given it a little thought on what we might be able to do something in their honor.  The idea was that we would dedicate the festival to the police. We’ve been doing some of those kinds of things over the past couple of years for different organizations, whether it’s veterans or school teachers or whatever but, it was time we honored the police. We don’t honor the police enough.”

Williams said the local community was especially eager to help since one of their own was wounded during the incident.

“John Westfall is known pretty well in this area and his family has lived here for generations. His kids go to school here and his mother was a teacher here.  Like I said, his family has been a member of this county for generations. I don’t want to say it was a shock, but it was certainly a huge concern when people heard it.”

So far, about 15 police departments from around the state have pledged to participate.  Spencer’s Director of Marketing Jacob Fetty said they hope more sign on.

“It’s been pretty interesting to see how fast other departments have gotten on board and have wanted to come here to Spencer to support this. I’d say we are now at 15 departments that will be here. We’re still two weeks out, so we’re hoping that number is going to grow up into the 30’s or so. Both sheriffs throughout the state and municipalities that have police departments throughout the state have pledged that they are going to attend. It’s been pretty interesting and pretty neat to watch people band together and want to pay tribute to this.”