The West Texas Running Club and Levelland’s Main Street Organization held the Run the Mosaics Bobby Birdsong Memorial Run Saturday June 10 on the downtown Levelland square.
Main Street manager Tania Moody believed the run was a success with over 200 people signing up and roughly 150 runners present after moving the run from Lubbock to Levelland.
“When we started this, we were told that moving locations can always be a bit tricky and especially making it where it’s further away from Lubbock because that’s where most of the members are,” Moody said. “We were told that we would be lucky to get about 100 runners for the first year. It was a huge, huge success for our first time bringing that race back home.”
The race showcased the mosaics located near downtown Levelland with identifying flags for each one.
“A huge shout out to the Police Department and the campus police for South Plains College and all the volunteers that showed up waving flags to identify where our mosaics were,” Moody said. “The flags looked beautiful in the light breeze that we had and identified where people could kind of draw their eye to.”
Moody shared that her family was positioned at the large mosaic on the Chamber of Commerce building and had lots of runners stop to thank them and take photos of the mosaic. The runners also enjoyed the route and terrane.
“It was a flat route, so they didn’t have a lot of hills to go. They were running all on pavement,” Moody said. “They appreciated the Police Department leading them and the Police Department brought out the flags and actually kicked off the race with the runners and that was really neat.”
Runners were also able to take part in creating a mosaic for the West Texas Running Club that will be placed on the Levelland downtown square.
“We also had a boot with red, white and blue that we had a table and invited each runner that came up to put a piece in the mosaic and that will be completed and that will go somewhere on the square in honor of the West Texas Running Club and the Run the Mosaics Race,” Moody said. “So, all of that was filled in by the runners.”
Moody explained the censuses was positive but Main Street will hold a meeting to discuss potential changes that need to be made to the event. Moody also expressed gratitude towards the 10 sponsors that helped fund the event.
“I really, really appreciated the people that stepped up and helped us to be able to bring this back home and that was Keeling Insurance, Levelland Physical therapy, FootTech out of Lubbock, Invicta, Allied Oilfield, KLVT Radio, City Bank, Hockley County School Employee Credit Union, Farm Credit Services and Atchison’s Jewelry,” Moody said.
Moody anticipates the race to continue to be held in Levelland with more runners participating in the years to come.
“Thank you to West Texas Running Club for taking that chance and partnering with us and seeing the vision of how cool this could be and I really think they were pleased, and I think that they’re excited to continue this relationship and hopefully the runners will be even more excited next year after they hear all the good things about the race,” Moody said.
The Main Street organization also held Sip-and-Swirl Around the World Friday June 9 on the downtown Levelland square. Moody shared 307 tickets were sold for the event and the organization cleared $30,000. VIP ticketholders started the event at Studebaker Events.
“I thought it went great,” Moody said. “Studebakers did an outstanding job of decorating and preparing for the VIP. United Supermarket Catering did an outstanding job with the food. We heard tons of compliments on the food and everybody had plenty of food.”
Sip-and-Swirl Around the World brought different cultural foods and drinks to Levelland for attendees to try.
“Everybody had decorated on theme, and it made it fun,” Moody said. “We had a selfie station where people got to take some pictures and commemorate the event. The area where they had decorated for the Corkscrew Cafe was lit up and looked absolutely gorgeous and I saw people enjoying that.”
Moody shared the sales made by a downtown retail business during the event and said the businesses enjoy hosting the events to fund Main Street projects.
“I had several businesses say they had great nights. In fact, I know one of my businesses had a $4,000 night,” Moody said. “I had a couple that said they had a fair night of shopping not anything to get blown away or anything, but definitely made it worth their while to open the doors. They were very happy to help support the fundraiser because they also know that this helps to create more things that draw people and to have the ability to do projects going forward.”
Main Street members and volunteers helped make the event a success by serving food and drinks, assisting attendees with check-in and driving attendees to and from parking.
“The board members all really stepped up and helped that night and we had a great amount of volunteers,” Moody said. “We had 55 volunteers and those were people that showed up outside of Main Street and then of course all of the volunteers that were working their own businesses and their staff helped out as well.”
Moody said attendees enjoyed being able to explore downtown while having food and beverages, getting to visit with friends and look at the new mosaics. Moody was thankful for all of the sponsors and participating businesses that support the Main Street organization which in turn helps build a prosperous downtown Levelland.
“It makes us as a Main Street program, feel like we’re heading in the right direction to receive that much support because all of our sponsors and volunteers knew that they were helping to create even more wonderful projects for downtown and that makes us feel really good as an organization,” Moody said.