In fact, the couple, after a video about their accomplishments in creating the city’s Operation Pumpkin festival, received a standing ovation.
“I came up here with a general idea of what I’d like to say, but that video threw me off,” said Jason Snyder. “We really had no idea what kind of impact we were making.
“We’re very happy and proud to be one of the many parts making Hamilton what it is today.”
The couple praised the many Operation Pumpkin volunteers for making the festival what it has become.
“We’re not from here,” added Tammy Snyder, who like her husband is from the Canton area. But she said they “fell in love” with the city. In accepting their award, they asked the festival’s committee to stand for applause.
“We are beyond humbled and very grateful for this award, so thank you very much,” Jason Snyder said.
Update on Spooky Nook
“We remain very excited about this project in Hamilton,” Spooky Nook owner Sam Beiler, the keynote speaker, told the audience. Much of the former Champion Paper mill will look like it did when current residents’ fathers and grandfathers worked there, he said.
“We continue to work on the funding stack” for the $140 million to $150 million project, he said.
Businesses should occupy vacant stores on Main and High streets now, he suggested, because when Spooky Nook opens here, he advised, “these storefronts on Main Street, on High Street, are going to be gone.”
An economic impact study that examined the activity created by the existing Spooky Nook facility near Lancaster, Pa., found it created $98.5 million in business, including direct and indirect benefits.
During Martin Luther King weekend, a volleyball tournament drew 11,000-plus people to the Pennsylvania site each day. If just half those people leave a similar tournament in Hamilton someday and visit restaurants nearby, that will be 5,000 hungry customers, he said.
And while he said he believes Hamilton is primed for the excitement and energy another Spooky Nook will bring, “You don’t have enough restaurants to feed 5,000 people yet.”
City Manager Joshua Smith has said that following the new federal tax laws approved in December, officials are aiming at a groundbreaking by this fall to maximize historic building tax credits.
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