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The 56th annual Tobacco & Heritage Festival is less than a month away and the Logan County Chamber of Commerce is asking people to come on down and pick up applications for the events that require pre-registration.

All festival applications are now available at the chamber office and online at www.loganchamber.com.

“We really want to encourage everyone to sign up for the events and take part in the festival,” Champber of Commerce executive director Lisa Browning said.

The events that require pre-registration include the parade, the Jesse James 5K Run & Walk (also includes the school challenge), the Little Mister & Miss Pageant, the Senior Stroll, the Road Rally, the karaoke contest, the craft show & flea market and the Queen’s Pageant.

Last year the Queen’s Pageant had to be scrapped due to a lack of participation, but the chamber is trying to have it this year on a different date.

“We didn’t have one last year and that was probably the first time in the modern history of the festival,” Browning said. “A lot of girls said that when we have it during fall break, it messes them up.”

So, the pageant this year has been scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 27 in the Russellville High School deGraffenried Auditorium.

“We only had six sign up last year and we’re hoping for more this year,” Browning said. “We just didn’t feel like it was fair to them if we had it with only six. The girls who wanted to do it were disappointed, but we didn’t receive a lot of other feedback about it.”

One other difference this year will be the absence of carnival rides.

For the past several years, participation in the rides has dropped and that made it hard for the chamber to bring them back again.

“We have had issues with the location and it just didn’t work out this year with the ride operators,” Browning said. “We will be trying to bring them back in the future, however.”

There will once again be inflatable bouncers for children to enjoy on Saturday, Oct. 13.

This year’s festival theme will be “A County of Heroes,” and the parade will feature state champion football coach Ken barrett and state champion basketball coach Gerald Sinclair as grand marshals. Logan County’s Special Olympians will serve as parade marshals.

“When we first started talking about our theme,we thought about how much Logan County loves sports,” Browning said. “So many people have their kids playing all kind of sports and we thing that could make for a great theme.”

Browning added that the theme isn’t limited to sports, however.

“We want people to think about who their ‘champions’ are and they can incorporate that into the parade,” she said.

Aside from the Festival Queen pageant, all the other events kick off on Saturday, Oct. 6 with the 5K run/walk, the golf scramble and the road rally.

Everything will wrap up on Saturday, Oct. 13 with the parade taking place at 10:30 a.m. and the Summers, Kirby & Sanders Festival Finale concert featuring the Tyrone Dunn Experiment.

www.loganchamber.com.