Letter to the Editor
Chamber member takes issue with editorial

It is truly a mystery as to what the editor was referring to as a "immature display of emotion" or to "reacting hysterically" at the February Chamber meeting.

There were three things mentioned at the February meeting regarding the Festival. One, that a new chairman had been appointed.

Second was the new website for the Festival.

Chamber members were invited to go there and complete an application to see if you are qualified to be apart of the Festival committee.

Third was the closing of the checking account for the Miss Armed Forces scholarship.

Now assuming that she incorrectly referred to the wrong meeting and meant to refer to the March meeting here is my response to that.

Yes, there is no doubt that Bullard is changing.

I do not think there is anyone who wants to see Bullard come to a stand still, but only to move forward.

The growth of Bullard benefits everyone, business owners', the city, and its citizens.

The Festival promoted a positive thing for Bullard when a lot of the news coming out of Bullard was not.

It not only brought our community together, but it also brought people from outside of Bullard to Bullard.

From 2001 to 2006, over the course of each of those three day Festivals anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 people attended each year.

People came to Bullard not only to participate in the Festival, but they also came to our town and spent their dollars. That put dollars in our business owners' pockets and tax money in the city's pocket.

That tax money went to make improvements in the city, which in turn benefited the citizens of Bullard.

As for the "immature display of emotion".

For nine plus years, there was only a small group that worked on the Festival.

The Festival was built with emotion, heart, love for our country and community, and dedication to providing something for the good for the community.

In all of those years every time one of us would gave a report on the progress of the upcoming Festival all anyone would say is "Ya'll are doing a great job, keep up the great work."

Every year at the end of the Festival the Committee would ask the Chamber members for their input on changes that they would like to see made.

Moreover, every year no one would speak up for fear that they would be asked to put that idea to work.

Last year our President took it upon himself to see that the Festival would not be as successful as previous years. He came to committee meetings making promises of getting more people involved to take on some of the responsibilities.

One of these responsibilities was getting sponsors, raising money to pay for entertainment and events.

He never came through. So naturally the lack of attendance from last year is foremost in everyone's mind.

Remember 2005 when the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders came?

Many people said that they could not remember when there were that many people in downtown Bullard.

I doubt that our editor would remember that year, since she was not in Bullard at that time.

This year when our new Chamber "leaders" took it upon themselves to make changes to something that they had not been involved with, yes, I took it very personal.

While this maybe an organization of businesses, you are still dealing with human emotions.

Last year the President was told that it took more then ten months to put the Festival together.

In January he was told that it was time to start sending out letters to sponsors, venders, and begin tying up lose ends. Instead of being up front and honest with us, he put us off and ignored us. Then, to add insult to injury, the he asks for the opinion of someone that has never even attended a Festival on what he thinks needs to be changed.

What the President did was out of spite, to deliberately hurt, and embarrass me and other members of the past committees.

Since this is a group of professional businesspeople, the professional thing for the President would have been to be upfront and honest with all of the members of the Chamber and not sneak around and hide what he obliviously has been planning for along time.

When he did not do that, he forced the human emotions to take over.

The Festival was created to honor the men and women that sacrifice their lives each and every day to preserve our way of life.

It was a way to bring our community together to celebrate these men and women.

It was a way to bring people from outside of Bullard to Bullard to see and appreciate our way of life here in Bullard.

Finally, it was something that the Chamber did for the community, bringing them together to celebrate, and build pride within our community. It was not created to make money.

As to the editors suggestion on changing the bylaws.

The Chamber was setup on purpose so that all the Board would be able only to advice the general body.

Giving the Board absolute power takes away the right of members being able to stand up, voice an opinion, and have a say in the direction the Chamber needs to go.

In a perfect world, the Board members would go to members asking them for their input on issues that are currently being considered.

However, here in Bullard most of our officers and directors do not take the time to contact all of the members to see how they feel about the issues.

Case in point would be the on that has brought us here, the Festival.

It is hard to get anyone to want to run for an office of position on the Board.

Then it is equally as hard to get them to attend meetings and take on the responsibilities of that office.

For the record, I fully support the idea of having a

Homecoming Festival.

Homecoming should be

about the town. It should be about the school, the football team, cheerleaders, band, and students.

It is traditionally a time for people to come back to their hometown and relive their time growing up and living in Bullard. There is no reason why Bullard cannot have two Festivals. Many towns have more than one a year.

Bottom line is that all of this could have been, and should have been, avoided if our President has chosen to be upfront and honest with all of the members of the Chamber.

Instead, he chose not to.

At the end of the day though, while this is an organization of businesses and professionals, we all are still human with human emotions.

The Red White and Blue Festival grew out of the emotions and dedication of members of the Bullard Area Chamber of Commerce.

Susan Gardner,

Bullard