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The first ever "Off the Vine" wine tasting event took place last Friday night in downtown Dodgeville with several businesses as sponsors. They had their own bartenders pouring the different wines and each had finger food to go along with the wine. The downtown was pretty busy from 5-8 p.m., the times for the tasting! The Dodgeville Chamber of Commerce committee did a great job of organizing everything!
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The 5th Annual Halloween Street Party is scheduled for Saturday, October 26th from 2:00 - 4:00 p.m in downtown Dodgeville. Activities this year will include bus rides to the Lands' End Corn Maze, a haunted house and a free movie "Hotel Transylvania" which starts at 12:30 p.m. at the Dodge Theatre. The chamber of commerce is still looking for businesses to have a game booth at this event, Spots are available for any Dodgeville business or organization, even if you aren't located downtown. For more information, call the chamber office at 935-9200. Be sure to check out the listing in this week's paper to see all the "Trick or Treat" hours, especially the one for your area.
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Last weekend was the annual "Fall Art Tour"that began at either Mineral Point or Baraboo and included stops in Spring Green and Dodgeville, plus outside areas to the north, south, east or west of the cities or villages. Bob Kratochwill wanted to hit a few of the spots around Dodgeville, so we went on the tour - I was taking some photos. It really is interesting to see all the talented people who are right her in our own backyard! Right in the city limits of Dodgeville is Karen Fitzsimons, who I have known for many years (see above photo) and I have known she was talented all those years. We stopped at two places just south of Dodgeville - Audrey Christie, Sharon Nicholas and JorJan Borlin - then to the east - Linda Kelen and Carol Naughton - then to the west - Pamela Callahan and John F. Walte (first time tour members). It was very interesting!
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Brother Patrick (and former Mineral Pointer Todd Schaaf) was at the Ohio Valley Regional meeting held in Southern Indianapolis, Indiana Friday and Saturday. Pat was trying to get the 16-18 Year Old Ohio Valley Regional here again. He succeeded! That means there will be eight or nine teams coming here from Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan and West Virgina the week of July 14, 2014 (next summer). That will be a huge boom to our area with that many teams and fans coming in, all having to stay in motels and eat, shop and buy gasoline here for at least two if not three or four days. We are in need of volunteers (doesn't hurt to start the ball rolling early) for concessions, admissions, groundskeeping, announcing, scorekeeping, souvenir sales and more. Contact us at the Chronicle if interested in helping. We also need to form a committee to head things up, so you can volunteer for that too. This year's tournament will be "pool play"so it's a little different than in the past. Also, one day part of the games may be played out of the area at a site of another grass infield - that's mandatory and we probably won't be able to have another grass infield available at that time!