When I first started researching Watonga earlier this year before accepting my current position, the Watonga Cheese Festival is one of the first things I learned about. It seemed like a wholesome, fun, quirky tradition that helps define small communities like these.
Now, I’m about to experience my first Cheese Festival in person. I can’t wait!
I can’t think of a better way to combine my passions for journalism and eating than to cover a festival dedicated to cheese. And the best part is, a lot of that food will be right outside my office. I’ll have to exercise some serious self-control, but I plan to indulge at least a little bit.
I’d like to congratulate the Cheese Festival sponsors and organizers on planning this big event. It’s a monumental task scrutinized by the whole community and region, so I commend the Watonga Chamber and everyone who is pitching in and helping out.
It’s a relief to get back to the Cheese Festival, and big events in general, after the painful past year. All our lives have been changed and disrupted in ways that didn’t seem possible; community fixtures like the Cheese Festival, that seemed like they’d go on forever, were suddenly canceled and cast into doubt.
But the Watonga community has displayed tremendous strength in the past 16 months, and locals deserve this opportunity to let loose and enjoy themselves.
I’d like to thank everyone in the community who has embraced and supported me since I started this job six months ago. But I don’t think I can truly call myself a Watongan until I have attended the trademark Cheese Festival; so I’m happy, finally, to have that opportunity this weekend.