News

Greetings

You heard that right!  We are bringing back the good old fashioned street dance to our downtown courthouse lawn. This is a huge event for Giddings and we hope you can come spend the evening with us.

We will sing the National Anthem at 7pm with local artists leading us. There will be vendors and a concession stand. The street will close at 5pm to through traffic and we will start setting up the grounds. 

We want to give a shout out to our generous volunteers for the two events we hosted this week.  It always seems to come in waves when we are planning activities. 

This week we held the Senior Expo at the American Legion Post 276. We were blessed to have consummate volunteers, Mike Maass and Spencer Schneider cooking lunch while Rusty Scholl was giving commands... The rewards for working in the kitchen with this crew is a fantastic lunch. We are blessed to have these men in our community.  The Senior Expo is designed to bring senior citizens together with businesses and agencies who serve the senior population.  During our event we realized that the agencies and businesses really need to know each other also because of the population they serve.  You never know what will happen at one of our events. 

Going back to Sunday, the Chamber hosted the 10th Annual Festival Hill BBQ Picnic at the First Presbyterian Church. Every year we invite the students and faculty of Festival Hill to join us for an authentic barbeque picnic which consists of barbeque chicken, beef, and pork provided by City Meat Market, and all the sides.  This year we served potato salad, wendish noodles, ranch style beans, and lots of little sides. Desserts were peach cobbler, banana puddings, popcicles, cakes and brownies for our guests. We had so much fun with the students and learned a lot about the selection process for Institute.  Rick Wahrmund was our tour guide through the historic church sanctuary telling the history of the First Presbyterians in Giddings.

Finally, it has been very interesting to try to outguess the weather man every day. We usually bet on them being wrong at least 50% of the time, but lately they have really been struggling to get it right. And, when the news casters get the names of Texas towns wrong, it makes me crazy!  They may have gotten some blistering emails in Austin this week from Giddings. 

We hope you have a great weekend! Watch for more details about the Grimes Street Music Fest.

Denice Harlan, PCED, IOM

Greetings,

The thunder and lightning were impressive last night and our yard really did need a little rain to help it stay green. We are always grateful for nice rain that helps the plants and trees to stay healthy. Our Vitex are blooming nicely and the fragrance is so sweet. We also have some nice mint growing in pots out in front of the office. The squirrels have left a few new pecan saplings in the pots also.  The pecan trees here were very prolific this year and left us a lot of starters. You may want a pecan tree for your place. Come by and dig up a tiny sapling.  We can't keep them all. 

Remember to go GIVE BLOOD tomorrow at the Giddings Public Library. It is in the afternoon so more people can give. 11am - 6pm in the Community Room.

We are already in June and the weather is beautiful! Nice gentle rain that causes steam to rise from the road. It feels like a sauna out there. 

Did you know that every year for the past 49 years Festival Hill in Round Top has hosted Institute at Festival Hill for young musicians from all over the world. This year they have 93 students and 15 faculty on campus for six weeks. They will study each week with a different conductor and perform concerts several times a week. You need to see Festival Hill to believe that it exists and it is only 16 miles from Giddings, Texas. One of my favorite places on earth!

Monday afternoon we stopped by Maass Butane to recognize them as our June Business of the Month.  Clyde and Ray Maass have been in business in Giddings for 67 years. This local family owned business sells butane, but also so much more.  They have a nice collection of ropes and tack for the horse owners, beautiful jewelry for the ladies, and if you like to barbeque, they have some of the nice outdoor cookers. Outside they have trailers for every need.

Check out Maass Butane soon!

The Lee County Workforce Forum was held on Tuesday at the Giddings Public Library to learn from local business owners and Workforce partners about the employment needs in the community. We had a great turnout for this forum and look forward to meeting with Workforce Solutions Rural Capital Area again in the near future. 

Denice Harlan, PCED, IOM

Executive Director

Giddings Area Chamber of Commerce

183 E. Hempstead 

Giddings, Texas 78942

Greetings,

If April showers bring May flowers, we are seeing a lot of blossoms on the assorted trees, shrubs, and flower beds. We love the rain flowers that bloom in anticipation of the rain. The weatherman is wrong more than he is right, so we will watch the plants and see what happens. 

We had a fantastic Lee County Fair in spite of the weather reports of heavy rains, and possible weather alerts. Senior Citizen day broke all kinds of records for seniors served and amount of money raised for our scholarship fund. We even had visitors from Taylor, Texas. 

The bbq cookoff teams had great decorations and were cooking some mighty fine grub! Our first annual cornhole tournament turned out to be great fun. We are happy to announce that Chris Paul and Mason Becker came in 1st place in the tournament.  

On Friday we had the pleasure meeting our new friend from Ireland, Julie Mullen.  She was traveling from Tennessee to California by way of Giddings because she wanted to see a real RODEO! So, we gave her the grand tour and took her to see all the cool stuff at the fair and then she went over to the Rodeo Friday night. What a fun day for all of us!

We really liked the Swifty Swine Pig races and fell in love with the little piglet Princess! Now I want a baby pig. 

CONGRATULATIONS to all the Seniors graduating from Giddings, Lexington, and Dime Box this week.  We wish you all great success in your endeavors. 

Good luck is when opportunity meets preparation, while bad luck is when lack of preparation meets reality. Eliyahu Goldratt

Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/luck  

We will be closed on Monday, May 27th in observance of Memorial Day.

Happy Monday!

Quick email reminder because this is going to be a busy week!

Also we want to let you know that this weekend is the MS 150 bicycle race which runs through LaGrange.  That means there will be about 13,000 people who are riding, supporting, or reporting on the bicyclists that leave Houston on Saturday morning on their way to LaGrange.  They overnight in LaGrange and surrounding areas before heading to Austin on Sunday morning. There is a facebook page that is dedicated to the event.  This is a great event and we always look forward to seeing all the bicycles. Traffic might be affected. 

Denice Harlan, PCED, IOM

Executive Director

We are so excited to see the beautiful weather and we are very blessed. We are preparing for Easter with goodies in baskets. We also want our neighbors to know that Reese is very nosy and will come by for a visit. She has been to First Presbyterian to see Church Cat, has a little friend that is Grey Striped and wears a white collar that spends time on the porch, and she really likes to go to the Courthouse and visit. If you need to de-stress or just sit and relax for a minute, stop by, Reese would love to sit in your lap for a while.

We did update the Business & Breakfast page with the correct date. Sorry, I had Wednesday and it was really Tuesday. 

Here are a few items that do not have flyers -

Tuesday, April 23rd - Community Blood Drive at Giddings Public Library from 11:30am to 6pm.

Friday, April 26th - Good Bull Golf Carts will have their Ribbon Cutting at 10am in their new location next door to Motel 6.

Saturday, April 26-27th - MS 150 Bike Race from Houston to Austin.

We will have a few more updates later in the week as we get more info. 

Denice Harlan, PCED, IOM

Executive Director

Giddings Area Chamber of Commerce

183 E. Hempstead 

Giddings, Texas 78942

Greetings,

We are not complaining about the rain, wind, or pollen... but it has been interesting!

We are excited about the upcoming Career Fair that will be held at Giddings Middle School on Friday, April 12th.  There are so many jobs available in Giddings and the surrounding area.  It is crazy to see how many openings there are at local companies right now!

We will be hosting a Community Forum with the Texas Workforce Commission this summer to talk about the need for training and having a job ready workforce. 

Check out our attachment with all the local activities that we have information about this month.  We will have some updates and reminders coming soon.

Hope you have a great evening!

Greetings

The weather is warming up, the flowers are blooming, my car is yellow, and March is gone...

April is going to be full of fun activities and of course Easter is on the 21st. Really late in the season, and we will probably see another cold front before Easter. It always seems to happen, the warm weather teases us but then the frigid air returns. 

We have a great collection of Barbie's in the museum on display. Stop by to check it out. It is fun to see Barbie in her many costumes.

EVENTS

Career Expo at the Giddings Middle School - April 12 from 8am to 10:45am

Lunch & Learn/HR and the Cost of Job Injuries - May 8 from 11:30am to 1pm at Blinn College, 100 Ranger Drive, Room 120, Schulenburg. Register by May 6.

2019 Fun Shoot & Casino Nights Events - June 8
Fun Shoot at Fayette County Gun Club in LaGrange. Casino Night at Bastrop Convention Center. 512-718-0055

Senior Citizen Business Expo - June 25 from 10am to 2pm at American Legion Hall for seniors ages 55 and up.

Greetings

We are very excited to be partnering with Workforce Solutions Rural Capitol Area to bring business to Giddings Middle School. Your company can be part of the process of shaping the future of our community.

We will start early and be finished before lunch time. You will have a table and chair available to your business. Bring your best stories about the industry you are part of so the students can see where the future lies.

Students today will decide their preferred career path during eighth grade. The more job fields they are exposed to, will help them see what could be their passion in the future. 

For more information - call our office at 979-542-3455.

Greetings,

We have seen the Pecan trees budding out in the courtyard here at the office which the old-timers say means spring is here to stay.

The days are getting longer, the birds are singing louder, and everything is turning really green.  This is a great sign for the people who are not fond of winter. It also tells us that summer is right around the corner.  Yesterday it got so warm we were turning on the AC. It would be really nice to keep the AC turned off a few more weeks. 

The month of March sailed by and we are staring right at the month of April. We have a few things happening this week and then next week we get rolling again.

Lee County Day at the Capitol was fun and we had a great time celebrating with Tootsie Tomanetz while she was being recognized on the floor of the House and Senate last week. The Capitol is huge and we walked about 5000 steps during the visit.  Check out the photos of our group with Senator Lois Kolkhorst and Representative John Cyrier! We appreciate everything our legislators do for Lee County.

Come by the Lee County Museum this week to check out the Barbie Collection we have on display! Several local citizens have extensive Barbie Collections that will be part of the display.  Help us celebrate her 60th Birthday, Friday 2pm-4pm.