Jackson Homecomers won't change Saturday hours this year

Contrary to recent news reports and social media postings, organizers of this month’s Jackson Homecomers will not be adding additional hours on the final day of the festival.

Homecomers is scheduled for July 23 through 27, in uptown Jackson. Sponsored by Jackson American Legion Post 158, Homecomers is the legion’s biggest fundraiser.

The annual festival is scheduled to operate from about 5 until 10:30 or 11 p.m. each day. Last month, the Jackson Board of Aldermen approved a request to close sections of Main and High streets to accommodate food vendors, carnival rides and other Homecomers attractions.

A group of Jackson merchants petitioned the aldermen in May, asking accommodations be made in this year’s Homecomers plans that would either keep High Street open during the festival, shorten the event by two days or add additional hours July 27, a Saturday, to help draw people to their stores.

The merchants were hopeful adding three hours, from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m., July 27 would help offset some of the lost sales they anticipate as a result of street closures during the week by bringing people to uptown Jackson in the middle of the day.

However, Homecomers committee chairman Larry Koehler said Monday “it’s simply too late” this year to change contract terms with the carnival vendor, Fountain City Amusements of De Soto, Missouri. As a result, Homecomers will not open July 27 until around 5 p.m., he said. According to Koehler, the carnival vendor was reluctant to add addition hours to the carnival crew’s schedule and then ask workers to stay all night packing up after the festival ended so the streets could be open by 6 a.m. July 28.

Koehler said he and the Homecomers committee will continue to work with the city and merchants to come up with ideas for future Homecomers festivals that address the merchants’ concerns. For instance, he said the committee will look into the possibility of moving Homecomers one block south in the future, which would allow a block of High Street south of the Cape Girardeau County Courthouse to remain open.