The 2024 Old Settlers Picnic had dancing, running/walking, fishing, church, bingo, pickleball, kids games, and rodeos that all led up to the highlight event of the parade at Uniontown on Labor Day.
The community and surrounding areas enjoyed the food, crafts, vendors, car show, and parade on Labor Day. People picnicked in the park, enjoyed the baby parade, recognition of old settlers, kids games and raffles/contests.
The Holt family were the grand marshalls of the parade, with Marilyn Holt, the matriarch, sitting front and center on the float, along with three of her children Debbie Likely, Randy Holt and Susan Eldridge,their spouses,their grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Her oldest son, Kenny, died in 2019, and her husband Kent, “Poke”, died in 2021. The Holts have been bankers in Bourbon County since 1901.
Horse riders bring up the tail of the parade on Sept.2 at the Old Settlers Picnic.The class of Uniontown High School 2026 in the parade.The U.H.S Freshman Class.The alumni Class of 1959.The U.H.S Class of 1964.The U.H.S. Class of 1974.Fort Scott Community College students in the parade.Members of Bethel Community Baptist Church in the parade.The younger Uniontown foot players in the parade.The U.H.S. Football Team.Uniontown Cheerleaders.The Marching Eagles Band.The Holt family with Marilyn (center, right in blue shirt) and her descendants on the float.The Bourbon County Sheriff’s Office leads the parade.
Tina and David Lipe, owners of Sharky’s Pub and Grub, stand on the new patio, at 16 N. National Avenue.
Fort Scottians may have noticed that there is a construction area on the south side of Sharky’s Pub and Grug, 16 N. National Avenue.
A major project is underway by Tina and David Lipe who started the restaurant in June 2011.
“Our facility has everything: a cool designed building, a banquet facility…and we always wanted an outdoor facility,” Dave Lipe said.
He said through the years they have added solar equipment on the roof, all new windows and doors and beginning sometime in September 2024 there will be a large outdoor patio open to the public.
They began the project in June of this year and when completed there will be a bar, pickleball court, TVs, gas firepits and bathrooms.
Looking east towards National Avenue. This area is the site of the pickleball court. The area will have a short fence around it. David Lipe said.
“It will be a place for people to enjoy outdoor dining, a little live music, and pickleball,” he said. “Hopefully people will come and enjoy it.”
The patio is 50 feet by 100 feet, with a fence around it and is located south of the restaurant. Entry is from the restaurant.
They hired local Fort Scott businesses to work on the patio: PJW Consulting and Ron Hurd Construction. Others were McKenney Masonry, Geiger Plumbing, Jeff Allen Electric, Bill Lalman Fencing, Miller Brothers Welding and Peerless Products, Inc. who made the doors from the restaurant to the patio.
This construction of the outside bar is in progress at Sharky’s Pub and Grub. The expansion is on the south side of the restaurant.
About the restaurant
Sharky’s has 32 employees, mostly part-time and they will be adding more with the patio opening.
Their banquet facility is on the third floor of the historic building and is for birthday parties, wedding receptions, and meetings.
Starting Thanksgiving weekend they open a Christmas-themed pop-up bar on the third floor.
“People really enjoy Sharkey’s North Pole,” Lipe said.
The restaurant also provides catering services to the community.
For information on reserving the banquet room or catering services, contact Lipe at 816.392.2825.
Restaurant hours are 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday, Friday and Saturday until 2 a.m. and they close at 7 p.m. on Sunday except for some sporting events, he said.
Sharkey’s Pub and Grub, 16 N. National Avenue. The outdoor patio construction is on the south of the restaurant.
The Lipes have a Sharky’s Pub and Grub in Iola, KS and Nevada, MO and is a true family business, with two of their four children working with them.
The annual Fort Fest is September 27-29 at Riverfront Park on Fort Scott’s North National Avenue.
Blues singers entertain during the Fort Fest 23 event.
The event is an entertainment weekend that features Blues Music and brings in donations for a local cancer survivor group, Care to Share.
Care to Share/ Sharing Bucket is a grassroots volunteer organization providing support to members of the community impacted by cancer, with financial or emotional support, and even driving individuals to and from doctor appointments out of town.
Teresa Davenport is the President and can be reached at
(620) 238-0902
Teresa Davenport, president of Care to Share, and Cory Bryars, vice president, hold the organization’s banner in front of the front desk area for the organization at 401 Woodland Hills Blvd.
Music begins at 6 p.m. on September 27 with Two Lane Highway, Linn County; and at 8 p.m. with Tim Hoggard and the Two-Legged Rooster, Jonesboro, AR.
On Saturday, singing starts again with Big Luke and the Soul Disciples at 1 p.m.; Alyssa Galvan, from southwest Missouri at 3 p.m.; Hamilton Loomis from Louisiana and Texas at 5 p.m., and the Divas on Fire from northwest Arkansas at 7 p.m.
In addition, there will be food and art/craft vendors, a corn hole tournament, and an ax throwing area around the park.
“There is also a MUCH IMPROVED Kidz Korner including the train that Lavetta Simmons (one of the founders of Care to Share) used to have at her house, bouncy houses, the petting zoo again, giant jenga games, a cakewalk, face painting, and much much more,” Cory Bryars said. “We did a poor job last year, and we want the community to know that we are taking huge steps to have a great kid component of the event, We have a dedicated volunteer already rounding everything up and a PLAN!!! Last year we slipped in the kid area, and we would love the community to know that we know it and are correcting it.”
The organizers are asking that no pets be brought to the festival.
Please bring chairs/blankets/bug spray/small coolers for the event and there will be shuttles to the parking areas nearby.
New this year is the addition of another day with a switch of music genre.
“Sunday is a Gospel celebration and car show, Cory Bryars, spokesman for the Care To Share organization
Starting at 11:30 a.m. on Sunday, September 29, there will be biscuits with gravy, donuts, coffee, juice, pop, and water available until 1 p.m.
At 1 p.m. the gathering will hear local choir musicians, soloists, and piano musicians along with prayers, a Scripture reading, a speaker and testimonies of cancer survivors interspersed in the event.
The event will end at 2:30 p.m. and the car show will start in the park at 3 p.m.
The car show was Saturday last year, and there was no Sunday activity, Bryars said.
Accused of murder after going missing for four days and returning with tales of a fantastical land, a young Dorothy must convince a psychologist of her innocence in 1896 Kansas, in a retelling of The Wizard of Oz.
Diagnosed a pathological liar with unimaginable skeletons in his family’s closet, crusading attorney Leo Balanoff, when his fingerprints show up on the murder weapon used to kill a ruthless drug dealer, is forced to go undercover for the FBI, finding himself backed into a corner, but has a few more cards left to play.
When a high school girl vanishes from her quiet suburban neighborhood and her teenage son, Liam, was the last one to see her alive, Erika, who has always sensed something dark and disturbed in her seemingly perfect older child, must decide how far she’ll go to protect him. Original.
A New York gig economy worker who makes a living renting himself out as a pretend fiancé, wingman or extra funeral mourner confronts his own longing for connection when a client blurs the line between what’s real and what’s fake.
When the apocalypse plunges the world into darkness during their vacation at an all-inclusive resort, professional underachiever Dan Foster and his girlfriend, as the island falls under martial law, find a way to escape, but Dan has second thoughts about abandoning the burgeoning revolution he might-have-kind-of-sort-of single-handedly started. Original.
“A dual-timeline psychological thriller about a sinister white patron of Harlem Renaissance artists known as “Godmother” and a contemporary young Black woman who has inherited what may be a cursed painting”
Join Coast Guard vet Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, as they try to survive the end of the world—or just get to the next level—in a video game-like, trap-filled fantasy dungeon.
When the Carryx decimate the human population, taking the best and brightest of Anjiin society to serve on their homeworld, Dafyd Alkhor, swept along with them, is forced to compete against the other captive species with extinction as the price of failure.
Longtime hunting buddies Jess and Storey stumble out of the woods and into a post-apocalyptic Maine after their two-week, off-the-grid moose hunt, forcing them to fight their way home amidst bewildering secessionist violence and a shocking discovery.
Locked inside a hyperbaric chamber, six experienced saturation divers, when one of them is found dead in his bunk, must always watch one another’s backs and when another diver is discovered unresponsive, they must discover what—or who—is taking them out one by one. Original.
When a friend who’s in jail for murder in a small Oklahoma town needs his help, Texas cowboy Cap Whitlatch, while escorting him through Indian territory, faces bloodthirsty Cherokees, outlaws after the gold in his saddlebags and a marshal hell-bent on bringing every lawbreaker in—dead or alive. Original.
A retired lawyer and dog rescue operator investigates after one of his recent adopters is implicated in a mass shooting at his workplace in the latest addition to the series following‘Twas the Bite Before Christmas. Simultaneous.
Discovering the charred body of an Amish man, chained to a stake and burned alive, in the woods, newlywed Chief of Police Kate Burkholder, at odds with everyone around her, uncovers a secret legacy that shatters everything she thought she knew about the Amish themselves?—?and her own roots.
PI Clay Edison, when a case of simple fraud explodes into an elaborate con game stretching back decades and involving countless victims, follows the evidence to a tiny town on California’s remote Lost Coast where he discovers the price of truth is higher?—?and deadlier?—?than he ever could’ve imagined.
Part memoir, part manifesto, the inspiring story of a Louisiana librarian advocating for inclusivity on the front lines of America’s vicious culture wars. Illustrations.
“In this substantially revised and updated edition of his internationally best-selling book, pioneering theorist and entrepreneur Matthew Ball goes beyond the hype cycle to present a definitive account of the future of the internet. The Metaverse, according to Ball’s industry-shaping definition, is a persistent and interconnected network of 3D virtual worlds that will eventually serve as the gateway to most online experiences and underpin much of the physical world.”
Drawn from never-before-seen sources and peopled with unforgettable characters, this epic and often brutal saga of crime and redemption, set in the early 1900s when a strictly off-the-books vice squad called the Incorruptibles waged war on the sin they saw as threatening the future of their New York City community. Illustrations.
It’s a cliché but it’s true: teaching is the best job in the world. So why are more teachers leaving the profession than ever before? Thanks to staff shortages, accountability pressures, and heavy workloads, teachers are burning out fast. This raises the question: How do you stay happy and keep teaching?
A visual exploration of the power and behavior of light across the entire electromagnetic spectrum reveals how types ranging from radio waves to X-rays affect life on earth and throughout the universe. –Publisher.
The New York Times best-selling authors of The Genius of Dogs, to find out what it takes to raise a great dog, enrolled 101 puppies in the Duke Puppy Kindergarten to understand the secrets of the puppy mind to help them grow up to be the best dogs they can be. Illustrations.
“With three little boys less than two years apart and a packed schedule as an online creator, Caroline Chambers often doesn’t feel like cooking. Inspired by her wildly popular Substack newsletter of the same name, this book is brimming with efficient recipes that take the guesswork out of dinner-in fact, each one is a complete meal: protein, veg, starch, done! The recipes are organized by the amount of time they take to cook, so whether you have 15 minutes to throw together something or a little bit moretime on your hands, dinnertime is totally doable. On top of that, Caro gives you more ways to choose, so you can search by protein (chicken thighs waiting in the fridge? Make White Chicken Chili. Nothing but beans in the pantry? Cannellini Caprese with Burrata is it!) or mood (Tomato Farrotto is perfect for a cozy craving, and Crunchy Honey Harissa Fish Tacos are an excellent way to show off). Most importantly, these recipes include Caro’s famously extensive swaps, riffs, tips, shortcuts, and more to be sure they work best for you, helping you save money, improvise, and even learn a thing or two”
The 119th Annual Old Settlers Picnic is this weekend, starting on Friday evening with a street dance and continuing to the recognition of old settlers to the community on Monday afternoon.
The parade is on Monday, with the Marilyn Holt family as the grand marshalls.
The following information was provided by Sara Roufs, president of the Old Settler’s Picnic Committee.
Friday, August 30
To kick off the weekend, there will be a street dance on Friday evening with live music by No Bad Vibes.
Saturday, August 31
“The 5K Run/Walk will now be in Uniontown as well as the kid’s fishing derby so the town will be bustling and we are inviting the community to have a yard sale if they wish,” said Sara Roufs. “It would be a great chance to make some spending cash for Monday where there will be a variety of food and craft vendors available.
Sunday, September 1
There will be the traditional community church service in the park on Sunday at 10 a.m. starting with a coffee, milk and donuts social. This annual event is a collaboration of the First Missionary Baptist Church and Uniontown Methodist Church.
“Everyone really enjoyed bingo last year, so we will start that earlier on Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. Prizes have been donated by local businesses.”
Sally Johnson will be facilitating the bingo game and it will be at the southeast pavilion in the town’s square.
The grand opening of the new pickleball court will be at 5:30 p.m. at the new court on the south side of the town square park.
The new Uniontown Pickleball Court.
“Family Fun Night will begin at 6 p.m. at the park and will also include the kids’ games normally played on Monday. The youth rodeo also begins at 6 p.m. on Sunday.”
Monday, September 2
“The car show will be held at the southeast side of the square starting at 9 a.m. so be sure to check out the amazing vehicles and grab some breakfast before the parade begins.”
“New this year for the car show, Dale Jackson’s family will be judging and picking their top 20 favorite vehicles and top 5 favorite motorcycles and overall best of show. Spectators are invited to vote for their favorite as well. Trophies will be awarded by the family at 1:00.”
“Food and craft vendors will mainly be lined up on the north street this year to make room in the park for everyone to stay and enjoy the day.”
“Bring a lawn chair or lay a blanket out on the grass. We will have live music throughout the day performed by Holly Crays and cash prizes, raffle drawings and contests.”
Bring a lawnchair and stay awhile. 2022 Old Settler’s Picnic photo.
“We will have a baby parade at noon at the gazebo where they can introduce and show off their little ones. All babies that register for the baby parade will be entered to win a prize.”
“We will once again be having free kids carnival games in the northwest corner of the park starting at noon. The Old Settlers Committee has purchased prizes with donations from our generous sponsors to provide free fun for the kids to replace the bounce houses they were allowed to have in the past. Starting last year, the city council now requires that we purchase a special event policy to cover all the weekend events and our policy will not cover bounce houses. The carnival games are a great replacement and we are really excited to send the kids home with some fun prizes.”
Parade
“All kids are welcome to be in the children’s parade at 10:30. Ride a bike, wear a costume or just walk for fun. Line up at the fire station at 10:15.
The parade will start at 11 a.m.
The grand marshall of the 2024 parade is Marilyn Holt and her family. Community members are selected to be honored to lead the parade each year.
“Entries for the main parade will line up starting at 10 a.m. at the football field. We hope every club, organization, business, etc will participate. Our parade theme this year is “It’s a family tradition” and we will have a family float category so we hope to see some families join the parade. There will be cash prizes for the top floats.”
All area families, clubs, organizations, teams, churches and businesses are invited to be a part of the parade. First place prize for a float is $100, 2nd place is $75 and 3rd place is $50.
Kids Sign Up To Win a New Bike
“New this year too, all kids in attendance will be able to sign up (for free) at the Old Settlers tent to win a free bike! We will have multiple bikes to give away, which were paid for by raffle ticket sales this year. Mary Pillion has done an amazing job organizing and selling raffle tickets to make this happen.”
“As the treasurer, she keeps meticulous records and devotes a great amount of time to fundraising and contacting our sponsors. We have an entire circle of people volunteering time or making donations. There are far too many to mention individually but we want to thank everyone who has contributed to this and kept this community tradition going since 1905.”
Shanna Stone and Dan Duling will be the featured musicians at this week’s Friday Night Free Concert at 1st and Main Street’s Heritage Park at 7 p.m.
Attendees are asked to bring lawn chairs as benches are limited.
In case of inclement weather, the performance will be moved to Common Ground Coffee Co. at 12 E. Wall.
The Fort Scott Area Chamber of Commerce is the sponsor and Ralph Carlson is the organizer of the event.
Shana Stone grew up in Southeast Kansas and has been a lifelong staple of the local music community, having performed with country music legends such as George Jones, T. G. Sheppard, Merle Haggard, and more.
Dan Duling, a member of the musically prolific Duling family, spent many years in education and has long been at the forefront of the Southeast Kansas country music scene.
The new neon sign on the clubhouse at Woodland Hills Golf Course welcomes visitors.
The City of Fort Scott staff are trying to make the Woodland Hills Golf Course used by the community more, in fact, to become an activity center in Fort Scott.
Woodland Hills Golf Course, 2414 S. Horton, Fort Scott.
The staff spoke at this week’s Chamber of Commerce Coffee hosted by the golf course.
“Steve and his clubhouse crew have implemented many upgrades for our customers this year,” said Mary Wyatt, FS City Planning, Housing and Development Director, and as such is the director of the golf course. “We have contracted with a new golf cart fleet vendor and replaced all of our old golf carts, installed new countertops, purchased a new TV for the clubhouse, and purchased new high-top tables and chairs. We are also in the process of contracting with a new point-of-sale hardware and software which has many new features such as a tee-time software, annual pass cards for members, and a new website that we will be implementing soon.”
“As the FS Director of the Golf Course, I help facilitate and assist with projects, but the on-site management and their crews are the ones that make the customer experience so excellent with their daily hard work and dedication,” she said.
New Name For The Clubhouse
“With all of the new upgrades this year, we thought it would be a great time to give the Woodland Hills Golf Course Clubhouse an official name,” she said.
A suggestion box was placed in the clubhouse requesting name suggestions, and the top 10 were selected and put into a survey online. The community voted on the suggestions, determined the winning name by majority vote, and purchased a sign with that name that was installed on the front entrance of the clubhouse.
The new sign on the clubhouse at Woodland Hills Golf Course.
“The new official name chosen by the community is The Clubhouse!” she said. “Key Industries, Inc. designed shirts with the official new name for staff, and Jeff Allen wired and mounted the new sign.”
Community Is Invited To Utilize
“We have worked hard this year to create a more inclusive environment that any man, woman, or child can enjoy for more than just a golfing experience,” she said. “We want to invite everyone to come watch their favorite sports games in the clubhouse, hold their volunteer group or committee meetings there, host a weekly card game with friends, or come enjoy a burger or chicken sandwich for lunch or dinner.”
Steve Carter, club manager, said there are currently golf leagues for men, women, children and families, with cart rental at $16 for 18 holes of golf and $10 for 9 holes of golf.
Grounds Keepers
Dustin Fowler, head greens keeper, and his staff: Tyler Cook, Jonathan Allen, Rick McDaniels, and Glenn Niemann have been working to maintain the fairway with weather conditions adding to the workload.
Fowler said the Fort Scott Public Works dredged a pond to make it larger and deeper for irrigation of the greens and Bermuda sod had been donated from Wolf Creek Golf Course, to replace sod that had been killed by drought/ winter kill. He said the plan is for the fairways to be reseeded next spring.
“Dustin and his grounds team have put in a lot of overtime this year working towards recovering our greens and fairways from the past few years of drought and from the flood we had earlier this year,” she said. “The drought has caused a lot of bare, brown spots, throughout the property that are not easily repaired, and the flooding all but destroyed the bottom nine holes of the golf course.”
“It’s taken a lot of focused intensive work to manually rake the gravel out of the greens and back onto the cart paths not just after the flood but every time we have a heavy rain, a lot of seed planting, aeration, sod installation, watering, and fertilizing to rehabilitate the grounds post-drought as well as the rebuilding the bottom nine holes after flooding and heavy rain.”
“Even with the drought and the flood working against our crews and all of the special projects they’ve been working on, they still work day in and day out to maintain the grounds for golfers to enjoy daily and for hosting golf tournaments, they also built a very unique and beautiful section of brick cart path.”
Future Projects
Mini Golf
FS City Manager BradMatkin said he met with a business owner recently and there is a grant opportunity for a Fort Scott-themed miniature golf course at the city-owned golf course.
“This is in the very early stages, so I don’t have a ton of answers right now,” Matkin said. “Once I have budgeting information, it still have to be approved by the commission.”
“The Youth Activity Team has granted money for this project, and we are working on another grant for additional monies,” Matkin said.
“Our vision is to have an 18-hole miniature golf course that will not only add value to our community but will bring people from the area into our town to play. Fort Scott needs more things for families to do and I feel this would be perfect for that type of activity. We want it to be a place where a family can go out play 18-holes of miniature golf then eat a burger or hot dog, at The Clubhouse, and enjoy each other’s company or meet new friends.”
” We are going to ask for businesses to purchase holes and will let them put their “logos”, “theme” or brand on the holes,” he said. “It would really be great to have a hole that represents the fort, the splash pad, or possibly other parts of our history.”
Other Future Projects
Also in the future “the grounds crew hope to concrete all of the cart paths to make a smoother driving experience for our customers as well as prevent the loss of the cart paths during heavy rains or flooding, and create new appealing features such as decorative wooden bridges and detailed landscaping.”
“We hope to purchase new patio furniture for people to enjoy socializing out back and make the environment more cozy and inviting,” she said. “We hope to be able to provide full kitchen capabilities with a wider range of menu options, golf simulators to give customers the capability of the golf experience year-round, mini golf, and a driving range have also been discussed as well as landscaping the grass circle in front of the clubhouse.”
The clubhouse left, and the golf course garage is on the right, in this photo of Woodland Hills Golf Course.
Danny Brown and the Bourbon County Revival will be performing this Friday evening in downtown Fort Scott at 1st and Main Street.
“One of our best,” said Ralph Carlson, organizer of the free concerts. “They are pretty eclectic and have a lot of variety. We are glad to have them.”
The concert starts at 7 p.m., and the audience is asked to bring lawn chairs. In case of inclement weather, the concert will be at Common Ground Coffee Co., 12 E. Wall.
The concert series is sponsored by the Fort Scott Area Chamber of Commerce and organized by Carlson.
This week’s Friday Night Concert will feature Mariam Tucker Self, Kansas City‘s only female Elvis tribute artist. Singing with professional studio tracks recreated by the EPProject, the evening will feature songs from Elvis’ famous 1973 “Aloha from Hawaii Concert,” plus additional favorite hits. The free concert, held in the Round Room at Fort Scott Community College, 2108 Horton, begins at 7:00 p.m.
“I’ve known this young lady since she was a child singing in church at the age of three. Her mother stood her up on the piano bench and she sang in perfect pitch. Born and raised in Fort Scott, she now resides in Peculiar, MO, with her husband Levi and their three daughters. She is the lead vocalist for the Tucker Family Band, performs solo gigs, and sings in the church worship team in Lee‘s Summit,“ concert-series organizer Ralph Carlson said. “I am pleased to welcome Mariam onto the stage to perform for our great community. You won’t want to miss this lively show. Bring a neighbor and join your friends for a fun evening of musical entertainment.”
The concert series is sponsored by the Fort Scott Area Chamber of Commerce and organized by Carlson.
