LOGAN — All up and down the sidewalks of Logan’s Main Street on Thursday, gloved people with trowels could be seen hard at work, planting and mulching the many flower beds that line the town’s main thoroughfare. It was all being done in preparation for the 2024 national symposium of the community beautification program America in Bloom (AIB), which will be held in Logan and Columbus.
Though the symposium is not until late September, the work on the uptown flower displays is being done now to make sure they’re ready and properly magnificent when the event begins.
“We want the flowers in full bloom,” explained Sue Karshner, a volunteer with the local organization Logan in Bloom. “They’ve got to be fertilized, and dead-headed, and watered all summer, so that by September it’ll just be a cascade of flowers.”
As previously reported in The Logan Daily News, in late 2022 AIB announced that Logan would be the host for its 2024 symposium. At that time Rick Webb, co-chair of Logan’s AIB committee said that being named symposium host was an honor: “We’re one of the smaller cities that have ever hosted it,” he noted.
At the 2023 symposium held in Spartanburg, S.C., the organization recognized Logan’s beautification efforts with awards for Best Adaptive Reuse Project and Best Volunteer Recognition Program. The city also received special recognition for its floral impact from its AIB advisers.
According to a schedule on the AIB website , the three-day symposium will take place from Thursday, Sept. 26 through Saturday, Sept. 28. More than 150 people from around the U.S. and even other countries are expected to attend. They will spend two days of their visit in Columbus, but on Friday afternoon and evening they will be shown the sights in Logan.
“They’re coming down on buses from Columbus,” Karshner said. “They had to stay in Columbus because it’s a three-day symposium, and they needed conference rooms, and they needed people feeding them three times a day, and they needed beds. And it just wouldn’t work here in Logan… And I think Columbus is an attraction to a lot of people. So it’s kind of a win-win thing because they get to see Columbus, and then they come down here for the day. And there’ll be tours of Logan. We’re working with the mayor to try to get buses to all the spots like the Bowen House, and the new aquatic pool, and the Chieftain Center, and the Welcome Center. We can’t take them to the parks, but we will have photos at the convention of the parks, and try to show them why people come here, and why now they’re interested in downtown.”
AIB’s raison d’etre, she suggested, is revitalizing downtowns across the nation with the help of flowers. When Logan in Bloom was launched, she said, “the whole intent was to gussy up downtown, so it attracted people. People are attracted not only to nature and the parks, but they do like downtowns that are decorated, and have the gardens in the little sidewalk areas, and so forth.”
Given the significance of Logan’s being named to host an AIB symposium, Karshner said, she thinks more people ought to know about it, and about Logan in Bloom’s work to improve the city.
“You’ll talk to somebody, and say, ‘You know all those containers downtown, and the hanging baskets?’ and they’ll say, ‘Yeah, the city does that.’ But the city does not do that — it’s Logan in Bloom that does that. They have a committee that works really hard… “We’re trying to get a lot of volunteers, and when you say, ‘Would your group like to volunteer?’ they’re like, ‘What’s Logan in Bloom?’ I’ve said this all along — we don’t promote ourselves enough. It’s a group that doesn’t want to be braggadocious, or whatever, but you’ve got to beat your own drum!”
Email at jphillips@logandaily.com
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