Festival just one way association spreads its message

By now you know the City of Roses Music Festival is no more -- in name, that is. The festival, now in its 11th year, has changed its name to the River City Music Festival -- a decision made to coincide with Cape Girardeau's marketing image as a Mississippi River town.

But that's only one change to the festival. This year organizers moved the music up a few weeks, scaled down the hours and garnered more support from businesses and community organizations, including Cape Girardeau Mayor Jay Knudtson.

City of Roses Music Heritage Association president Mary Ramsey talked to the Southeast Missourian about the association's mission in organizing the festival and some of the changes to this year's event.

Matt Sanders: Tell me about the City of Roses Music Heritage Association itself. Who are you? What is your mission?

Mary Ramsey: We're trying to raise awareness for music education and why it's so important. Statistics show that children who are in music programs get into less trouble, have better scores on their test, there's many different benefits. Why it's important for schools to keep music in their education system, because they're slowly pulling away the time and funding for their art and music programs.

MS: How do you go about getting that message across?

MR: We are at this point just getting the word out about who we are, putting brochures together, doing little events, doing our little things like our banner competition that helps us get into schools. They want to hear a little bit more about what we're doing now, and I think the public is definitely listening. I think most people know how important it is, but we forget.

MS: This year will be the awarding of the first scholarship for a Southeast Missouri State University music student, right?

MR: Yes, the Eddie Kies William L. Shivelbine Musician's Scholarship. We are awarding the first scholarship to a young woman from Shivelbine. The mayor will present the big check. The family of Tommy Johnson (recently deceased Tommy DeWolf) will be downtown and doing fund-raisers for a second scholarship fund that's been put in place. A fund-raiser at Port Cape in the Captain's Quarters will run all weekend, also we'll be collecting donations for that scholarship fund.

MS: Who are members of the committee that controls the association?

MR: Myself, Joyce Davis, Mary Ann Forester; we have a few others but these are the more active members.

I should also mention Steven Kennedy, he's been with us. This is his fourth year, I believe.

These are the active board members, but we have many, many organizers of the festival right now. This year it's really come together, the community's coming out of the woodwork right now. Everybody wants to get involved with a good, community-oriented event for a good cause.

MS: What kind of involvement have you seen this year that you didn't have last year?

MR: We basically have started just telling people a little bit more about our mission ... and people want to get involved, and they just start talking. We'll find a lot of younger people, out of college, business-oriented, will just be looking for a group to get involved with a lot of times.

I should have mentioned Dr. [Larry] Underberg, he's just been phenomenal with the planning committee this year -- irreplaceable. He just basically thought it was a good cause, loves music, loves the idea of what we're doing.

MS: It seems like you have gotten more entities behind the festival, too -- businesses, the mayor, the CVB.

MR: It's absolutely wonderful. Jay Knudtson has shown us the support that we really needed to get the festival moving forward and helping us to get the word out. Just having his support is something I think the downtown business owners appreciate. And having him support us, I think it's a definite benefit to our organization.

The CVB ... they are a supporter, they are a sponsor this year. I think they really want to see the festival move forward, also, and build on itself. My take is, boosting tourism is a part of the Convention and Visitors Bureau, and that's something that we want to assist in. The more people that come down to the festival, it's better for us and it helps out the city, it helps out the economy. We're all trying to work together to do that.

MS: I hear NARS is going to have a fireworks display.

MR: It was just kind of a fluke that it's on the same weekend, and it worked out. They're having a party they're doing for their grand opening celebration, and their fireworks show would really add a neat aspect to our show.

MS: Which day is the fireworks display?

MR: Friday night.

MS: You've brought in more touring performers this year, right?

MR: When the Underberg House Concerts got involved with this, along with them came a lot of wonderful talent, and contracts with some bigger, regional acts. We have Peter Karp that's playing at Tunes at Twilight ... playing on the main stage later on that night. Then we have Kimberley Dahme ... she just has a draw that is unlike any other. We are so happy to have her. She is a really big supporter of Cape Girardeau and loves it here.

We also have one of Cape/Jackson's own, John Ramey, in Jackson Greenfield. John Ramey was a Jackson high school alum and attended Southeast Missouri State University ... and his family's still here ... so a native of the area is coming back to play just to support the cause.

MS: There are fewer bands this year. Why?

MR: We are focusing our efforts and more of our volunteer time in the latter afternoon, because we didn't have as much of a turnout between 12 and 3 o'clock. So between 12 and three we just used our volunteer efforts elsewhere.

MS: Bands will still play the bars at night, right?

MR: Yes. And we'd love to see the bars hosting live music and run that throughout the day on Saturday. I've been to Chicago and down to Beale Street, and I see them doing this. They'll just have live music constantly, whether it be a solo musician or a full live band, all day throughout their festival hours. And I think that would just be something more to offer our tourists who ... don't want to have to wait until late evening to come down and see the music.

MS: So what kind of turnout are you shooting for this year?

MR: For the last three years our attendance has risen 25 percent, and this year we're looking toward a 15 to 20 percent rise in attendance.

We had around 2,500 people last year, but we'd love to get our numbers up to near 3,000, but we understand it takes time.

I think there's a lot more support for the cause now that people know what's behind the music.

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182