Okay everyone, take a look at your calendar and make plans to get lots of sleep this week. You may want to add some stretching and endurance exercises into your daily routine. In case you missed the obvious signs of pollen coating your vehicles and dogwoods blooming, it’s time to get ready for one of Cumberland County’s biggest weekends of the year.

So hold onto your hats, this week we are celebrating the award-winning Fayetteville Dogwood Festival! Remember it’s not a race, it’s a marathon weekend, and you don’t want to miss a thing.

This annual rite of spring that showcases all the best of our community is in the spotlight of this edition of Up & Coming Weekly.  We have showcased this wonderfully anticipated event that has been over a year in the making. So, get ready for a great week!

 Forget about your taxes and that extension you filed last week. Forget about the UDO, PWC, tax rates, annexation controversies or the washing machine hose that broke and flooded your basement or that shopping cart that dinged your new car. This is our time to celebrate springtime here in Fayetteville, N.C., by showing off our city, our communities and the people who make living here enjoyable and unique. 

The publication you are reading right now is your guide to experiencing one of the most outstanding outdoor festivals in southeast North Carolina – for that matter in the Southeast. For those of you that are new in town or strictly get your news and information from an iPhone or other source of social media, the Fayetteville Dogwood Festival is held annually in Historic Downtown Fayetteville. In downtown and its adjacent Festival Park, you will experience three days of fun, food and entertainment that showcases the personality and hospitality of our entire community. There will be something for everyone: motorcycle/car rallies, pageants, duck races, street vendors, arts, crafts, street performers and live music including several huge concerts. See Associate Publisher Janice Burton’s article on page13. Janice is a veteran of numerous Dogwood Festivals and knows what she is talking about.

My message this week is extremely simple: This event is very special to us. Its quality reflects not only the values of our community but signifies what can be maintained and preserved when the right vision, compassion and proper leadership come together for the benefit of the Fayetteville community and our surrounding communities. This being said, I congratulate Dogwood Festival Director Carrie King, her board of directors and the countless numbers of volunteers dedicated to carrying on this 33-year Fayetteville tradition. We need more of this kind of leadership to make our community safe, economically sound and to provide the quality of life needed for growth in the 21st century. Again, thank you Carrie! 

Now let’s all have a wonderful and unforgettable weekend. Thank you for reading Up & Coming Weekly, your community newspaper.