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Monday, August 30, 2021

Countywide Music Competition and Baseball Game Planned for Labor Day, Sept. 5, 1921

Plans for Community Sing

Township classes striving to out-sing one another in competition, musicians playing in an old-fashioned fiddlers’ contest, all the folks of the county joining together in a regular “get together” sing, these are some of the features which will foster neighborly feeling by genuine enjoyment of the holiday celebration in Lillington on Labor Day, September 5th. But everyone must be there and help to make this a real Harnett county event. It is hoped that every family in the county will pack up a lunch and come prepared to sing and listed to singing, to meet friends, go to the ball game and to the entertainment at night, and join in helping everybody have the best time of his life.

The plans for the sing are well under way. The sing will be held in the warehouse, which will be arranged to seat over a thousand, with a stage for the singers in the contest. A baseball game has been scheduled for the afternoon and there will be an entertainment at night. If it is possible to rush the completion of the new Killiegrey hotel, it will be open on Labor Day and specially priced dinners will be served there. The people of Lillngotn are making every effort to accommodate the crowds and entertain them hospitably. To this end a mass meeting was held last week and committees appointed to make arrangements for the event. Prizes have been offered by the town of Lillington for the different competitions. The county’s banks have offered a silver loving cup for the best singing class.

Mr. Roy L. Hoffmeister of Community Service, New York City, will have charge of the program of the sing and he will lead the congregational singing and the numbers by the grand chorus from the whole county. He will spend a week in the county attending rehearsals of the township’s singers and perfecting the final plans for Labor Day.

Each township will have a class of about 40 singers to complete for the silver loving cup and will render a program limited to 25 minutes. Efforts are being made to have each township’s program original and varied so that there may be little duplication of the numbers. Singing by male quartets from each township will be attractive features of the contest and the fiddler’s contest is expected to be all that an old-fashioned fiddlers’ contest should be.

The contests on Labor Day promise excitement as well as beautiful and enjoyable music. Each rival township confidently expects to bear off the loving cup and all are working hard to this end. Competent judges, all from outside the county, have been secured to decide the contests and award the prizes.

Under the leadership of Mr. T.L. Riddle a large calls has been organized in Dunn and Mrs. Harper Holliday in in charge of the practices.

Mr. Frizelle, the leader for Lillington, holds practices twice a week. The program has been arranged and much interest shown. Mr. J.M. Core is the leader for Duke. Mr. H.C. Cameron has the rehearsals in Barbecue township well under way.

It is not just the competition for prizes which has aroused the enthusiasm of people all over the county. It is the genuine love of good music and enjoyment in this form of self-expression which brings them together for practices and causes them to sing as never before. Of the townships at work in their singing classes six have already arranged their programs and others are formulating their plans.

Neills Creek township has held three practices at Buies Creek under the leadership of Mr. Leslie Campbell. Attendance has varied from 40 to 75, some coming over five miles to the practice. In Buckhorn township Mr. J.R. Brown of Kipling leads the singing class.

The leaders of the townships have co-operated splendidly with the department of community service to arouse interest and secure support for the plans of Miss Mame Camp, director of community service in the county, and the members of her committee, Mr. Paul Green and Mr. Carlyle Campbell. This is a community event and the aid of everyone in the county is needed to make it a complete success. The leaders in the work have devoted a great deal of time and thought and effort. It is hoped that the whole county will turn out to participate in the Labor Day celebration.

From The Harnett County News, as reprinted in The Dunn Dispatch, Aug. 30, 1921

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Harnett Community Sing

The Harnett County Community Service organization is to be commended for the zeal it is showing in the arrangements being made for the great community sing on Labor Day. It will be a county-wide affair and the business men of the city have co-operated in offering valuable prizes so that a widespread participation in the event is assured. A county-wide sing can be made an agency for bringing a great number of the people together and the benefits of social contact of this sort in the form of broadened sympathies and interests are apparent. Miss Mame F. Clamp is the Harnett director of community service. The manner in which she is pushing the arrangements for the community sing shows she his taking her work seriously and is a promise that the work will prosper under the administration.

From the News and Observer, as reprinted on the front page of The Dunn Dispatch, Aug. 30, 1921

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