Spring Fling teaming with KoC car show

acoulter@thenewsenterprise.com
Event planners hope merging two annual community events will double attendance and promote a spirit of cooperation.
The Hardin County Chamber of Commerce Spring Fling and the Knights of Columbus fourth Annual Car & Bike Show will take place from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. April 30.
The car and bike show has increased in attendance every year and attracted 88 people last year, said John Pike, grand knight for the Knights of Columbus and show organizer.
Spring Fling, which is entering its sixth year, drew about 2,000 people last year. That’s far fewer than the estimated 5,000 to 8,000 people who attended the Autumn Daze Festival that year, said Donna Broadway, events coordinator for Vine Grove.
She said the possibility of boosting attendance makes combining Spring Fling and the car and bike show logical.
The event will include a community craft show at Optimist Park in Vine Grove, vendors, yard sales, at least 100 show cars and motorcycles, and local blues and jazz band Fit 4 a King.
Broadway said the band was popular at some festivals last year, and she thinks the show will help attract attendance.
Activities will be free to patrons. There are registration fees for registering vehicles and setting up vendor booths and yard sales.
Money raised by the car and bike show will go toward helping people in the county who have mental handicaps, and money raised by Spring Fling activities will go toward covering the cost of the event.
Spring Fling historically been has hosted by the Vine Grove Chamber of Commerce.
That organization merged earlier this month with the Hardin County Chamber of Commerce, so the county chamber begins hosting the event in cooperation with the city of Vine Grove this year, Broadway said.
Broadway, who is on the Hardin County United project board, said the chambers merging and combining Spring Fling and the car and bike show represent the kind of community cooperation that can make the county more united and efficient.
“It just seems like this county is really coming together. We’re one community,” she said. “I like seeing that stuff in this community, everybody working together. When you work together, you get more done than when you’re not working together.”
The Knights of Columbus have helped the city of Vine Grove before through efforts such as cooking chili for the town hall meeting during A Dickens of a Christmas. Broadway said it’s nice to find new ways to increase that partnership.
For more information about the car and bike show, contact Pike at 862-2058. For more information about other activities, vendor booths or yard sales, contact Broadway at 877-2422 or donna@vine
grove.org.
Amber Coulter can be reached at (270) 505-1746.