Natchez knows how to party! This has been evidenced a lot lately, and WOW… what a great weekend we just enjoyed celebrating our 34th Annual Balloon Festival! The weekend ahead is again full with celebrations. But a special event is taking place at Monmouth on Sunday afternoon that you will not want to miss.

For the second year in a row, Team Natchez has been raising money to battle Breast Cancer, and our Finale Broadway Concert is this Sunday. Doors open at 4 p.m. Tickets are $75 each. Refreshments including wine and hors d’oeuvres will be served, and a Cash Bar will be available. All ticket proceeds will go to support the American Cancer Society. The Finale of our Silent Auction will also take place, were you can bid on amazing gifts and prizes. Afterwards, we will celebrate the conclusion of another successful campaign by eating supper at Restaurant 1818 — be sure to make your dinner reservations!

We have much to celebrate. We have already raised over $8,000, and by Sunday we hope the total will be closer to $15,000. Not bad for a beautiful small town on the Mississippi River. Combined with our total from last year, we hope to hit over $50,000 raised to battle cancer! We are so grateful to our Real Man Wears Pink 2019, Bishop/Dr. Kevin Deason of New Direction Outreach Ministry, and our Team Cheerleader, Mary Lessley. Bishop Deason is an inspiration to all who know him, and I don’t know what we would do without Mary.

None of our financial success would be possible without the generous support of our Team Sponsors: Darby’s, Fred & Melinda Kent, The Markets of Natchez, Natchez Pathology Laboratory, The Sherry Pierce Hartfield Memorial, Sullivan Dental Clinic, United Mississippi Bank, Brandon Hall, Monmouth Historic Inn, The Natchez Grand, Stanton Hall, The Stanton Guest House; Our Team Cheerleaders: Delta Bank, Home Bank, The John Kendall Memorial, Merit Health – Natchez; and Our In-Kind Sponsors: New Direction Outreach Ministries and Sign Graphics.

The artists performing Sunday are J. Taylor Hightower – Baritone, Susan Ruggiero – Soprano, and Zhaolei Xie, Pianist. All three are from Hattiesburg, where Dr. Hightower is an Associate Professor of Voice and the Undergraduate Coordinator of the School of Music at USM. Among the selections will be popular songs from musicals such as Show Boat, Phantom of the Opera, Carousel, Oklahoma, My Fair Lady, West Side Story, and several others. Needless to say the music will be beautiful – and memorable.

Better than all of this is the fact that Natchez again will be rallying to support a worthy cause. The scourge of cancer has touched us all. We rejoice that so much progress has been made to conquer it, and we pray for a day when it is gone for good.

Hope to see you Sunday – and don’t forget to wear your pink.

Dan Gibson is the 2018 Real Man Wears Pink and a 2019 Team Natchez Volunteer.