Cameron cautiously moves forward with Freedom Festival

From Citizen Observer June 4, 2020

The City of Cameron will continue forward with plans for the annual Freedom Festival, but will remain cautiously optimistic in the next few weeks.

Cameron City Manager Steve Rasmussen said officials will monitor the city’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and make a decision within the next week or two whether to cancel the annual Freedom Festival. 

“We’ve received a lot of questions about [Freedom Festival] and I know you all have too,” said Rasmussen to the Cameron City Council Monday night. “What we’ve done is we’ve continued to schedule Fourth of July activities … My recommendation is we continue with that planning and in the next week or two we will see what has happened as a result of the state largely opening on the first. If we have problems, then we can restrict it more. If we don’t have problems, then we can continue as planned. We have two weeks to go. It’s better they have a plan and cancel it than try to put it together at the last minute.”

Rasmussen’s announcement comes two weeks since the council finalized a contract with the Cameron Municipal Band, who will kick off Freedom Festival with a Thursday night, June 2, concert, which will also serve as the band’s season opening performance. The band traditionally begins each season in June, but delayed the opening due to the ongoing pandemic.

“Like everyone, we have issues of social distancing to address. Our board met via Zoom about a month ago and determined, at that time, for a regular season, but that’s not how things played out,” said Band Director Ann Goodwin-Clark last month. “... We made a decision, at this point, to delay the start of the season until July 2nd, which would be the Thursday night prior July 4th. We were thinking we could get six concerts (starting) July 2nd with the last one being August 6th. That would truncate our season by four concerts.” Cameron Missouri Main Street, Inc., who will oversee Freedom Festival for the first time this year, announced slew of events for the Freedom Festival with the annual car show set for Friday, July 3 and a downtown block party set for Saturday, July Fourth. With Freedom Festival just under a month away, Cameron Missouri Main Street Inc., will likely make more announcements in the near future.