The Mercer County Jaycees are asking you to dust off your old tux or prom dress and head to the Mercer County VFW Saturday, November 23rd at 6pm for the Jaycees Rerun Gala. Jaycee Kale Knisely spoke with WRMJ’s Terry James about the event.
Good morning, welcome to Focus. I’m Terry James, joined today by Kale Knisley with the Mercer County Jaycees. Hello, Kale.
Hi, how are you? Doing pretty good. We’re talking about the Jaycees Rerun Gala. And I first thought maybe you’re watching old TV shows or something, but this is a little different.
What’s going on, Kale? Well, that’s right. On November 23rd, which is a Saturday night, we’re hosting the Rerun Gala, which is kind of like a throwback prom, or you dig out your old prom dress or old vintage clothes, whether you went to the prom in the 80s or the 90s, or you wanna dress as disco or something like that. It’s just meant to be a fun event where we have a dinner, we have the Clint Stones playing, band playing music all night, and it’s just a really fun event that we hope people come out to and support the Jaycees and our charitable causes.
Now, wait a minute, you expect people to still fit into that tux from the 1980s. How is that gonna work, Kale? Well, for those who keep themselves in good shape, sure. Otherwise, there’s plenty of vintage stores or Goodwill or whatever, and you can find a funny outfit, and we will be giving away some prizes for best dressed.
We’ll nominate kind of a prom king and queen, and so we’re just trying to make it kind of fun for people and a reason to get out and maybe dress up fun and do something you wouldn’t normally do. Yeah, I like this. In fact, you’re encouraging folks to be a little weird, even wearing, you say, zebra print tuxedos.
Have you seen one of those before? Well, what we’ve seen is the dumb and dumber, the bright orange and the bright blue tuxedos. We’ve seen those. We’ve seen people in kind of cowboy and cowgirl attire, so really anything that suits your fancy.
Dress up, wear some old clothes or whatever you wanna do and come on out. Now, Kale, am I gonna have the same problem like in high school? I’ve got to find a date now for this? Well, no, I mean, we have people that come as groups. We have people come as singles, some people who just really like the Clint Stones band come on out.
And also, we’re gonna have a great dinner that’s served. The event starts at 6 p.m. and the dinner there will be served at 7. And it’s $50 a ticket. And so, yeah, and if you’re not interested in dinner, get ahold of somebody at the Jaycees and we can get you a different ticket, maybe for a different price.
But again, at the end of the day, this is all going towards our charitable causes. We put the money that we raise towards our special projects fund. And so, that funds things in the community.
In fact, last year, we put up new playground equipment at the Keithsburg Ball Diamond and it has gotten a ton of use. So, this helps us do things like that that we wouldn’t normally be able to do. That’s excellent.
Again, I was gonna ask you, the things that you guys do in the community, but the Jaycees are very active. A lot of people know you for the pork chops. How many pork chops do you cook a year, Kale? It’s in the thousands.
Between Rhubarb Fest and the fair, we’re cooking several thousand chops. And that is our primary fundraiser throughout the year. But given all of the good things that we’re able to give money to and donate to as it relates to kids and families in the community, we’re always trying to do something new to raise money and something that’s fun for the community too.
So, we’ve done this event in the past and we had good success in our first year. And then we tried to do it again last year, maybe to less success. So, we’re really trying to give it a go again.
So, we’re really looking for people to reach out to the Jaycees. Find us on Facebook, find a Jaycee. Reach out and say you’d like to get a ticket or grab a table.
And we’d love to see the community come out and support this event. Absolutely. The Jaycee’s very important to our community.
And you don’t have to be afraid because everybody’s gonna look a little weird when you walk in there. And if you don’t wanna dress up, that’s fine. Just come on out and enjoy the music and a good dinner there at the VFW.
And of course, there’s adult beverages served as well. It can be a fun night. You are allowed to giggle at your friends that night, for sure.
And that is the Jaycee’s Rerun Gala. It’s like a prom, but a little more fun. There’s no principal there to watch.
So, that’ll be good. Kale, nicely, again, how do people get tickets? So, find us on our Facebook page, the Mercer County Jaycee’s page. Or get a hold of somebody who you know is a Jaycee.
You can get a hold of me or there’s plenty of other people. John Swanson, Tanner Dunn, Lindsey Dunn, Kayla Weeks. There’s all kinds of people who are Jaycees in the community.
Reach out to one of us and grab tickets. But like I said, the easiest is probably go to our Facebook page and get a hold of us that way. All right, Mercer County Jaycee’s, the Jaycee’s Rerun Gala.
It is on the 23rd from, oh, I have to ask you this, 6 to 11.55 p.m. What’s the reason for that sharp cutoff there? That I can’t say. I didn’t make the time, so I couldn’t tell you. Maybe it has to do with the VFW, I don’t know.
Five minutes to clean up, folks. There you go. All right, Kale, thank you so much.
And we hope you get a lot of interest on this. Thank you. And this has been Focus.