Autryville aims to revive community events

AUTRYVILLE — Since the pandemic, many annual public gatherings have been put on hiatus. Despite the challenges, members of the Micajah Autry Historical Society are trying to help bring some of those old traditional festivities back to their community.

As part of the aim to resume activities that often brought people from Autryville and the surrounding areas to the town, one of their members, Kathleen Squibb, recently went before the town board to request permission to go ahead with their plans.

During her presentation, Squibb brought to light that the organization has, in the past, hosted or helped host several popular events in Autryville. The three she named included the Easter Parade, which is commonly held the Sunday before Easter, an annual classic and antique car cruise-in and a Christmas lighting ceremony.

“We are not saying that these are our responsibility but these are things we would like to see be reinstated,” Squibb said. “The Micajah Autry Society would like to volunteer to continue supporting the town of Autryville by hosting or co-host these events.”

“Hopefully, the COVID threat is lessened and it doesn’t get worse and (we’re not) stuck at home again,” she added. “We would like to help and we’re happy to volunteer to continue doing these things to improve the town.”

The Micajah Autry Historical Society is a non-profit organization established in 1987. The organization is named after a western pioneer and soldier born in Autryville. Autry served in the War of 1812 and as a private in Captain William Lord’s company, which marched to the defense of Wilmington when it was threatened by the British.

The goal of the society is dedicated to the education of Autryville residents and their community on the history of the town.

Squibb’s presentation wasn’t the only one that was given. Taylor Spell, wife of Mayor Grayson Spell, also came before the board with a desire to bring new activities to her town.

Hosting events at the town hall that foster community fellowship is her primary goal, she said. A couple of Spell’s ideas included a Ladies Night for adults, art and crafts workshops, meet and greets and movie nights for children and their families, all of which would be held at town hall.

“As we all know, the town is growing a lot with businesses, but I feel like one thing that our town lacks, especially being a young adult, is community,” Spell said. “So one thing that I would to see happen here, and I’m happy to host it, is Ladies Night Out in Autryville.”

“It would be more of every quarter or if we have a lot of people that are interested then we can do it more,” she stated. “The goal would be to have someone from a local business to come in and teach a class of any kind. This doesn’t just include us either, as people that don’t live in Autryville can come and just have fellowship with us.”

“It’s all about trying to get that community built so that we’re not here going through the motions, but that were actually a family,” Spell added. “Because this place is home, like what our logo says.”

Spell also pointed out during her briefing that all the events would come at no cost to the town and that her events were all nonprofit. She also mentioned that these proposed events would be non-alcoholic gatherings.

“These events would be at no cost to the town, but we would have to sell tickets and the price would be only to go towards the event and food,” Spell said. “I would not, or the town would not, make any money off of this. The tickets are just for controlling the amount of people in the room, as well as to pay the person who’s spent their time and (brought) the materials to host the event.”

After hearing both presentations, the town board voted to approve both groups to begin planning for future events.