Panhandle Chapter

panhandle April 30th, 2007

A ribbon cutting ceremony on April 28, 2007 officially opening the Blountstown Greenway was the central event of a day of beautiful weather, good fellowship, enjoyable music, and delicious food. A big round of applause and congratulations is due the folks of Blountstown and Calhoun County for hosting a great event and creating an outstanding foot and bike path. Members of the Chamber of Commerce and volunteers from many organizations and groups worked hard to make this a successful and enjoyable event, and they succeeded!

The day began at Sam Atkins Park where members of the Rivertown Community Church manned a booth to register folks to bike/walk/run the new path with people showing up as early as 7:15 a.m. to register. 

Leaving the park, the three and a half mile path is marked with blue blazes until intersecting with the Florida Trail, at which point the blazes become orange until the Florida Trail departs the path at the intersection with highway 20 where it heads east toward Bristol, Fl while the Greenway path continues on as blue blazes to end at the banks of the Apalachicola River. Along the way, the path intersects with several roadways, crosses newly built bridges, wanders through stands of trees and numerous flowers, and passes by an historic locomotive and a train depot which is being refurbished and will become the future home of the local Chamber of Commerce. 

The depot was the site of the day’s activities which included the ribbon cutting, musical entertainment, prize drawings, face painting, a barbeque dinner and information booths manned by members of various organization, including one by the FTA. 

Quite a few people stopped at the booth and expressed interest in the FTA, asking a lot of questions about the trail and the organization. Hopefully the interest shown by these visitors to the booth will result in some new members in the future. This event was a great way to advertise the FTA and raise awareness of our organization and it’s purpose.

The event was such a huge success and so thoroughly enjoyed by all who attended that talk is already circulating of making it an annual happening, and an invitation has been extended to the FTA to participate if it becomes a reality. 

• Events