June is always such a nice month, and it will be even nicer this year. We will be having our usual special musical events during the month. In addition, we will be having two special bicentennial events.

Our Jackson Municipal Band always kicks off the season with a patriotic concert at the Memorial Day program hosted by the Jackson American Legion. They had their usual awesome performance, giving us a preview of what to expect as they start their regular summer concerts at 7 p.m. every Thursday at the band shell in the park.

The first concert will feature Barefoot on Sunday as well as our Muny Band, so grab your lawn chair and join us for a fantastic free concert.

Leave the lawn chair in the car as you will need it the next night. Each Friday night in June, the park board sponsors the Rock in the Rock Garden events. The first performance will be at 7:30 p.m. Friday and will feature Dana Cooper, a guitar player. Join us!

Both of our June bicentennial events are tours. The Jackson Area Chamber of Commerce is sponsoring the Community and Business Tour on Saturday. Participants will have a choice of three morning and three afternoon tours.

Participants will meet at the Jackson High School parking lot at 8 a.m. to load onto buses for a historical tour of the Oliver House and Old McKendree Chapel, a government tour of the county sheriff's department and Jackson Fire and Police Departments, or a farm tour of Schoen Dairy Farm and SEMO Ag Farm. Lunch will be sponsored by Jackson Tire and Bank of Missouri. The afternoon tours will feature two business tours: one with Liberty Utilities and Mondi Jackson and the other one with Signature Packaging and Newell Rubbermaid. The other tour is an education tour of Saxony Lutheran High School and Jackson High School. You can still register by calling the JACOC office at 243-8131.

Our Jackson Ministerial Alliance is sponsoring tours of the historical churches in our Uptown Jackson District. The event will be on Sunday afternoon, June 29, and will feature the six churches in Uptown Jackson that were organized back in the 1800s: First Baptist Church, 1824; New McKendree United Methodist Church, 1840; Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, 1850; First Presbyterian Church, 1864; Emmanuel United Church of Christ, 1867; and St. Paul's Lutheran Church, 1893. Old Bethel Baptist Church (1806) and Old McKendree Methodist Church (1819) will have displays in First Baptist and New McKendree Methodist Churches. Save the date.

Another very popular June event is the E-Cycle Electronic Waste Collection. It will take place from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. June 21 at the city of Jackson Recycling Center. This provides an opportunity for you to recycle any outdated or unusable electronic devices. Electronics have become the fastest growing waste stream. It is estimated that more than 2 million tons of computers and electronics are disposed of each year, with only about 20 percent being recycled. This is the time for us to recycle our old electronics.

Barbara Lohr is the mayor of Jackson.