Tracy Press

Publisher emeritus will give a casual evening at the Grand Theatre props, but not before taking a serious stroll through this weekend's dry bean festival.

I'm going to give the Tracy Dry Bean Festival a good go this year.

Some years in the past, I’ve been out of town, and in others I’ve stopped down for a walk-through on one of the two days of the event.

But this year, as Dave Tillman, new executive director of the Tracy Chamber of Commerce, is putting a lot of time and effort into breathing new life into the bean fest, I plan to spend more time in Tracy’s transformed downtown to see how it’s turning out.

Corporate sponsors are hard to come by in this economy, so the tweaking of the festival offerings, started a couple of years ago by Jack Elliott and continued by Dan Maloney, needs to keep moving forward to attract support.

There will definitely be more "bean" in the bean fest this year. The California Bean Shippers Association and Pacific Grain & Foods will hold forth inside the Bean Pavilion, where they will sell more than 50 varieties of dry bean and soup blends.

The car show will be staged both days this year, and this should provide added interest to the festival. We don’t have any "name" entertainment scheduled, but there should be enough local talent to provide musical interest for festivalgoers.

And I like the idea of having one of the festival stages set aside for children performers. In past years, the kids have been the most popular acts.

Wine will be tasted, and margaritas served both days. But soft drinks and beer should be popular, with fairly warm weather in the offing. I’ll try my hand at pulling a few beers at the Rotary Club booth this afternoon. I’ve been a beer-booth guy at several bean fests past, and I think it’s a job even I can handle.

Hard to believe that this is the 22nd annual festival. I can still remember the excitement of the first year way back in 1987. It’s hard to maintain that level of excitement year after year, but this year’s festival should have enough going for it to supply a good time in the hometown — without having to hop in the ol’ gas-guzzler and drive out of town.

The word is ‘casual’

"Casual" is one of Kelly Kagehiro’s favorite words these days.

Kelly is heading up the Arts Leadership Alliance committee that’s producing the Sept. 13 American Graffiti Gala fundraiser on the first anniversary of the reconstructed Grand Theatre Center for the Art’s opening.

Last year, an ALA-sponsored gala celebrated the grand opening, and everyone was decked out in fairly formal garb for the historic occasion. And it was an elegant evening indeed when folks gathered in tents in the middle of Central Avenue for dinner before heading into the Grand’s main theater to hear the Linda Ronstadt concert.

This year, formal is out and casual is in, as far as attire is concerned.

"We just want everyone to feel comfortable in casual clothes in an informal setting," Kelly told me this week.

She feels some people may hesitate to attend the Sept. 13 gala featuring The Temptations for fear of having to dress up for the evening. Not so.

In the next week, Kelly and her committee will be out promoting ticket sales for this year’s gala. The price of $145 a ticket is not cheap, but the event raises money to promote programming at the Grand. And tickets are less expensive than last year’s grand-opening price of $250.

Tickets can be purchased at the Grand box office, by phoning the Grand at 831-6858 or online at www.atthegrand.org.

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