To the editor:

Successful communities aren’t successful by accident. To a great extent, they are successful when they are willing and able to pull together to set and accomplish goals, and to celebrate what’s special about the place they call home.

With that in mind, I want to congratulate everyone involved in this year’s Shellabration featuring the Steve Miller Band. I attended, as I try to do every year, and was once again impressed!

This event happens, and is successful, because year in, year out, hundreds of volunteers donate their time, scores of organizations and companies provide their financial support, and city and county government steps up to provide the support needed for park usage, law enforcement, traffic control, etc.

It’s a wonderful example of teamwork.

I had the pleasure and privilege of being involved in Shellabration in its early days; when it was both a big experiment and a big risk to take for everyone involved. We learned by doing, but had a lot of fun along the way. It’s become something truly amazing – an event that equals or is better than what you’d see in much larger metropolitan areas.

I know how hard it is to put an event like this on.

While the public who attends experiences the event for a few hours, the reality is that it is months in the making. The planning – and the time and effort – that’s needed to book bands, contract for things like staging and lighting, figure out the logistics of parking, concessions, port-o-potties, etc. is immense.

The day and evening of the event is stressful yet rewarding for the army of volunteers who help make it happen. And what few even think about is all the work that occurs after the event is over – the tearing down of everything that had to be put up, the picking up of litter, the paying of the bills, the meetings that occur to discuss what went right/what didn’t go so well, and what is needed to make next year’s event even better.

So thank you to everyone, and special thanks to the Shellabration board of directors. Jim Reed and the entire board deserve a great amount of credit, and deserve a big round of applause. While the event is a true team effort, these are the people that provide the leadership. Job extremely well done everyone.

John Hale

Ankeny