Nibley City reinvented their Heritage Days 2020

NIBLEY – The COVID-19 pandemic has people home-bound, schools released, even church was canceled.

One of the pieces of of chalk art on the floor of a pavilion at Heritage Park in Nibley has a puddle from the recent rains on it.

While other cities in Utah decided to throw their hands up and start canceling activities because of COVID-19, Nibley City huddled and brainstormed to come up with ways to continue holding their annual Heritage Days activities. Heritage Days Reinvented-20 was born.

Nibley City Manager David Zook said the city’s recreation director worked with others in the city to come up with a plan to get people excited about doing something for Heritage Days.

We felt like people needed to connect and have fun now more than ever,” he said.

In the past, the city’s annual Heritage Day events called for mass gatherings: family festivities, a carnival, Children’s Theater production, dinners, a parade and fireworks.

The worldwide pandemic changed all that.

With a goal of creating a happy, healthy, connected community, Chad Wright, the city’s recreation manger, changed course.

“All of our events this year have been designed with the health and wellness of our residents in mind,” he said. “We have organized more than a dozen Heritage Days events for this summer’s celebration.”

He said some events are similar to traditional events, but reinvented and others are new.

Last Saturday, the city held a Disc Golf Tournament as part of their annual activities. Monday evening, a Family Bike Night Out was held with suggested routes and a photo contest.

We have some pretty interesting photos of that activity on our Facebook page,” Wright said. “We also had a chalk art contest people did in their driveways.”

The city brought in some professional artists to do four chalk drawings on the floor of one of the Heritage Park pavilions.

Visitors to Heritage Park in Nibley take a look at the artwork done on the floor of one of the pavilions.

This year, they replaced the Children’s Theater production with a virtual talent contest, sponsored by the Nibley Children’s Theater Group.

“We had 47 entries,” Wright said. “That’s more entries than we usually get for our regular talent contest.”

The submissions were turned in Tuesday night and the judges are narrowing the field down before they announce the results.

They also held a coloring contest for elementary school students in the community. The results are posted in the windows of the Heritage Elementary School Gym. Ten winners were selected and their colored pages were posted on their social media website.

Other activities included a Disney Trivia and Family Movie Night, a Driveway Dance Party and the Beard and Moustache Growing Contest. There are Trail Surprise and Silly Walk contests on the community trails.

The Monarchs and Bees Educational webinar will held on the evening of June 24 from 6 p.m. until 7:30 p.m.

Heritage Days Coloring-Contest-Overall-Winner.

For a full list of the Heritage Day activities, visit their website Nibleycity.com or Facebook.com/nibley.

“We have been getting good support from the community,” Wright said. “We hosted a lot of activities and will plug in some of the others we didn’t use later on in the summer.”

Wright said there are so many interesting things they are trying to do to create a fun and beautiful experience this summer.

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1 Comment

  • Eldene Jeppson June 18, 2020 at 11:04 am Reply

    Congratulations on the changes and keeping everyone involved. Sounds like so much fun.

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