Lake City Market showcases our talent, products

From SCNow.com:

Food, music and gift items were all part of the festivities this past week as the National Bean Market Museum once again hosted the annual Holiday Market.

The market began with a preview night Thursday that included a Merchants Raffle, community celebrity roast, and live music by The Plaids in addition to the shopping opportunities and samples of local foods.

Joe Kinsley was the focus of Thursday’s roast. He has been a part of the Lake City community since 1961 and had a pharmacy in town for 30 years and said he enjoyed the roast. His favorite part; “when I got to roast back.”

Sherrie Moore, associate director at the National Bean Market Museum, said the best part of the four-day event “has been our local schools coming out with their ensembles and sung for us this week.”

Lake City College Preparatory Academy performed at the Holiday Market Friday. Directed by Jamez Dudley, director of Choral Activities at the school, the Eagle Choral Chamber Ensemble includes 18 members in grades six through ten. The select group performed a variety of pieces at the event including a variety of traditional Christmas carols, to 15th Century choral pieces, to modern spiritual pieces.

“I try to take them all over the place so they know exactly what they are doing,” said Dudley, “I want them to experience everything.”

Dudley has been working with this particular group as a whole since August and Friday’s performance was their second public performance. They will perform again December 15 at the Wesley United Methodist Church.

In addition to The Plaids and Lake City College Preparatory Academy, the Lake City high School Ensemble performed at the Market Saturday.

Moore said the performances “just put the whole market in the spirit of Christmas and the town has benefitted because it has brought a lot of people through the community this weekend,” Moore said.

“That’s the whole premise behind doing the holiday market,” said Moore. “We can do market’s like this that will bring folks in to town and shop at our local businesses as well.”

Moore said that several hundred people per day perused the market this year though it was more of a steady pace rather than everyone coming in at the same time.