Tourism numbers hit new records in St. Joseph last year.

The Pony Express Museum recorded its highest attendance, hotel occupancy was up and overall tourism numbers showed an increase for Buchanan County. These increases were part of a year of records for the entire state of Missouri in 2016.

According to Director of Sales with the St. Joseph Convention and Visitor’s Bureau Mary Supple, hotel occupancy was at 59.1 percent, up by one percent from 2015. Average Daily Rate was $82.53, up $3 from 2015 and according to the Missouri Division of Tourism, the economic impact of tourism in Buchanan County was $180 million, up from $175 million. 

Supple said they hope to increase tourism numbers again for 2017. 

“Our goals would be to increase over last year,” Supple said. “We do have some big bowling tournaments coming in that will be here several weekends at the end of March and the beginning of April so we think that’ll help boost our economic impact.” 

Director of Sales for the Candlewood Suites and Holiday Inn Express and Suites in St. Joseph Brandon Wilson said they saw an increase of 14 percent over 2015 numbers. 

“We saw a large increase in the amount of our local business, a lot of them had groups coming in,” Wilson said. “We saw a lot of people from different countries coming in for the factories that we have on the expressway, that generated an awful lot of business, and it seems like a lot of people are getting married in St. Joe. We’ve seen a heavy increase in the amount of weddings that we’ve had.” 

The Pony Express Museum recorded its highest attendance in 2016. According to Cindy Daffron with the museum they had 46,000 visitors, which is up from 40,000 the year before with people coming from all 50 states and 35 different countries. 

Daffron said she thinks part of the increase is due to the Buffalo Bill exhibit. 

“Changing an exhibit in a museum and then moving things around makes things look different so people are like, ‘Well we want to go see what’s different,’” Daffron said. “So maybe the museum’s been here since 1959, but it’s been added on to three times, it’s been changed up since I’ve been here four times, we’re getting ready to do a new exhibit in April called the Hall of Riders. So Buffalo Bill was here from 2014 to 16 and then a new exhibit will come here this year which I think will be a huge draw because it’s all about the riders and what happened to them after the Pony Express, which is one of the number one questions we get asked everyday.” 

Supple said they have already seen a large number of people planning to travel to St. Joseph for the Solar Eclipse in August. Daffron said they have special exhibits planned for that weekend and Wilson said many of the hotels are already sold out in town over that weekend. 

“I think only three of them have rooms available,” Wilson said. “It’s good to see St. Joe is actually getting something that a lot of people from across the world are wanting to attend.” 

The Solar Eclipse takes place August 21, 2017.

Students working behind the scenes at performances in Nebraska will get their chance to take the stage this weekend.

Jan Chism Wright is a member of the Board of Trustees for the Brownville Concert Series. Wright said this is the 27th season of the concert series. 

“It is a non-profit organization with a mission for student and community outreach,” Wright said. “Basically, we bring in top name talent, either nationally or internationally known performers, to a small, rural, underserved community to give exposure to, especially the students in the area, and also the community, to this wonderful talent.” 

Wright said as part of their mission, they hire local high school and college students to work backstage. 

“They get training in lighting and sound and putting on productions and basically all the aspects of performance and they get to interact with these famous performers that come from all over the world,” Wright said. 

This is the first year that the students will be putting on a performance. Wright said she hopes it becomes an annual event. 

“Our tech crew, they’re mostly behind the scenes, you don’t really get to see them, they make the show run smoothly,” Wright said. “Each of them are actually very good musicians in their own right and we want our audiences to know our backstage people better. We thought, what better way to do that than to have them perform so that our audience can see what talent we have working for us as well.” 

Wright said the high school jazz band from Auburn, Nebraska, will be performing along with guitar, piano, vocal and other performances by students from Omaha and Falls City, Nebraska, and Rock Port, Missouri. 

The performance will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Brownville Concert Hall in Brownville, Nebraska. For more information, call (402) 825-3331 or click here.

A clinic this weekend can help athletes in the long run.

This is the second year SERC Physical Therapy in St. Joseph is offering a free runners’ clinic for runners of all skill levels.

Physical Therapist and Clinic Director at SERC Micah Hilton said the clinic helps runners learn areas they can improve to prevent common wear and tear injuries.

The clinic will include 15 minute sessions starting with a functional movement screen.

“It’s a screen that looks at seven different functional movements that are common in everyday life and running and in recreational activity,” Hilton said. “So as we take them through the different moves… and based on scoring them, it predicts where they’re more vulnerable for injury. So it’s a good screen to use for people who are doing repetitive things like running or sports because you can prevent injuries really well by, kind of, picking out certain moves and working on those and addressing those issues before it comes to the point of an injury.”

Sessions will also include a running gait analysis and cover common exercises and stretches for runners. There will also be a question and answer session with running coach Ann Marie Chappell.

For more information or to RSVP for a time slot between 8:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. on Saturday, contact SERC Physical Therapy by Friday at (816) 396-8635 or mhilton@serctherapy.com.

SERC Physical Therapy is located at 3727 Gene Field Road in St. Joseph.

A free training program at Northwest Missouri State University will teach community members basic disaster response skills. 

The training, March 9th through the 12th on the Northwest campus covers disaster preparedness, disaster response, search and rescue, disaster psychology and more. 

Dr. Mark Corson is a Professor of Geography and of Emergency and Disaster Management at Northwest. 

Corson said the theme of the CERT training is to be a responder and not a victim. 

“CERT or Community Emergency Response Teams are citizen responders who, with some basic equipment and training are able to help themselves, their families, their neighbors, their communities in the event of an emergency,” Corson said. “It is a Federal Emergency Management Agency created and sponsored course, 24 hours, that garners a certificate from FEMA and we’re very excited to be able to offer that training here at Northwest.” 

Corson said he thinks the training is a confidence builder and a service to participants, their family and community.

“We know that disaster can strike at any time from a person having an accident to an automobile accident to a house fire to a tornado. I, myself, am an Emergency Medical Technician with (the) Nodaway County Ambulance District as a part-timer and so, a first responder, but I admit that really the first responder in an incident is going to be a family member who digs you out of the rubble or helps to take care of you,” Corson said. “So by people committing to this 24 hours, they’re really showing that they’re prepared to take care of themselves and their families and then they can go out and help their communities and be a responder rather than a victim.” 

The program runs from 6 to 10 p.m. on Thursday and Friday, March 9th and 10th and from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday March 11th and 12th. 

To register, click here or for more information, email Dr. Mark Corson at mcorson@nwmissouri.edu.

Curling and ice go together like peanut butter and jelly.

The Bode Ice Arena hosts open public skate sessions regularly, but the cost of admission Friday night during the “Spread the Love” event will be one jar of peanut butter or one jar of jelly. Bode Sports Complex Manager April Wyatt says the PB&J will be donated to the Second Harvest Community Food Bank.

“Peanut butter and jelly is pretty much a staple within the school district’s campus cupboard program,” Wyatt said.

Wyatt said if people don’t have donations they can also pay the $5 admission fee and $2 skate rental fee. 

After the “Spread the Love” event, the St. Joseph Curling Club will be offering an opportunity for community members to try out curling for free. Special Events and Communications Coordinator for the City of St. Joseph Julie Noel said the Curling Club has a league that competes Tuesday nights. 

“The Curling Club is trying to make the community more aware of curling and give them opportunities to try it out and see if they like it and practice playing,” Noel said. “It’s a great opportunity for families to go out and just enjoy some time together for free.”

The “Spread the Love” event at the open public skate session takes place from 6-8 p.m. Friday at the Bode Ice Arena located at 2500 Southwest Parkway in St. Joseph. The free curling instruction will be offered from 8:30-10:30 p.m. 

For more information, contact the Bode Ice Arena at (816) 271-5506.