THANK YOU!

The members of the planning committee of the South Franklin Catfish Festival would like to express our heartfelt thanks to everyone who made our first annual event a HUGE success! Our expectations were exceeded at every level – from the enthusiastic response of everyone attending, the incredible quality offered by our vendors, the mouth-watering goodness of every single food booth, the high-energy talent provided by our performers, the gorgeous and abundant antique cars – it was amazing from start to finish!

Behind the scenes, we could not be more grateful to our Wisner Police Department led by Chief Billy Beach, the Franklin Parish Sheriff’s Department and Sheriff Kevin Cobb, Fire Department and Emergency Medical Service and volunteers from law enforcement organizations throughout the region. They helped insure our festival was safe and well-run and then provided manpower for the necessary post-festival clean-up! Amazing Grace Ministries was invaluable throughout the preparation and all day at the festival, working tirelessly and graciously. Big thanks also to Michael Young who designed and managed our wonderful website also designed our very first T-shirt and shot video footage on festival day. Our town workers were all-in on this project as well, taking great pride in working to make sure every detail was taken care of. We also appreciate the efforts of the local Boy Scouts who helped coordinate parking around town all day. And thanks to all the volunteers who showed up to register cars, sell shirts and soft drinks, put up and take down chairs and tables and every other job that came up!

This event would not have been possible without the financial support of many businesses, individuals and organizations who stepped up to sponsor our brand new festival. Many, many thanks to the following: Franklin Parish Tourism, Haring’s Catfish, Franklin State Bank, WSB, Northeast Louisiana Power Cooperative, Kiper Hardware & Lumber, Waller-Singer Chevrolet, First Baptist Church Wisner, Plantation Manor Nursing & Rehab, Mary Anna Nursing Home, Amazing Grace Ministries, KMAR, Ezell’s Body Shop Towing & Recovery, Ezell’s One Stop, Winnsboro Rotary Club, Thomas and Loretta Peoples, Progressive Bank, JCP Management, Winnsboro Lions Club, E. Micah Hoggatt, Attorney at Law, Jimmy R. Coughran M.D., True Elevations Land Leveling, Stephens Irrigation & Drainage, The Andersons Inc., Main Street Trends, Young and Young Farms and Braswell Farms.

We’d also like to acknowledge the original Franklin Parish Catfish Festival, which built a successful event over more than 30 years and offered tremendous support, advice and encouragement to our festival. We definitely benefited from the great reputation and goodwill they created for the “catfish festival” brand and we are grateful to follow in their footsteps and create new traditions of our own.

We loved hosting this event and took so much joy in seeing familiar faces and new friends gathering together to enjoy food and music and laughter in our little town! Thank you so much for the kind comments (and suggestions) and we can’t wait to see you next year!

Elliot Britt – Festival Chairman

Marc McCarty – Mayor of Wisner

Festival Committee: Wisner Council Members Jo Caldwell and Roger Hilliard, Police Chief Billy Beach, Casey Beach, Makayla Britt, Joe Curtis, Joe Doughty, Brandon Loman, Harriet Luckett, Loretta Peoples, Hannah Sharp, Payton Sparks, Ashlyn Williams and Leslie Young