News

Greetings Vendors, Craftsmen, and Artisans,

We are excited to announce the new and improved Sip & Shop Christmas Market which will be hosted by the Chamber of Commerce at The Silos on 77!

Lori Hamff and Team have graciously joined forces with us to create an event that will attract more shoppers.

This year we are adding the Sip & Shop with the opportunity to have a cold beverage while shopping. Also new this year will be Santa's Workshop where we will have arts & crafts for the kids to take home.

Your going to want to sign up early because all the vendors from last year have a chance to register for this event first. We will start reaching out to the community at large and regionally to attract some new vendors. 

We do have a page on our Chamber website under the Events tab that will take you to the online registration. 

Let us know if you have questions.

Greetings

We are very excited to announce the Grand Opening and Ribbon Cutting for Daricek Insurance. 

Join us on Friday, September 6th at 10am at the new office of Daricek Insurance.  We are excited to see the new place. 

Our office received a phone call this morning from a lady who wanted to tell us about her experience in Giddings on Monday.

She had a blow out on Hwy 290 going to Houston.  She was 6 miles out and trying to make it into Giddings.  An Altman Plants employee stopped and helped her get back on the road. 

She was so amazed by the kindness of the man and his willingness to help her and get her back on her way.  She repeatedly told me how blessed she was by this seemingly bad event. She made me cry with her description of the man helping her. Good crying! It made me so proud of our wonderful community and all the amazing people who live here.

Thank you to each and everyone of you for all you do in our community and for leading your company employees to be wonderful people. 

WE ARE BLESSED!

Denice Harlan, PCED, IOM

Greetings,

We are currently under a BURN BAN for the whole county.  Please share this information with your staff, family, and friends.

The temperatures are very warm and make us thankful for air conditioning. Please stay hydrated this week and pray for rain.

We do want to also make you aware of an upcoming TRAFFIC SITUATION at the railroad tracks starting on Monday, August 19th  at 10pm and continuing until 10am on Tuesday, August 20th to upgrade the tracks and railway crossing arms. Please use Hempstead Street as a detour, or stay east of Highway 77. See attachment. 

There are several upcoming events that are sure to put a smile on your face.  If you need information or tickets let us know.  We can help.  

Watch for news about upcoming ribbon cuttings, open houses, and Chamber Mixers. 

Denice Harlan, PCED, IOM

We are happy to see the weekend rapidly approaching! There is so much to be thankful for today.  We have another little kitten that showed up this week.  We have him ready to go home with someone who is looking for a baby kitty. SWEET LITTLE BABY kitty.  

We are also getting ready for our 97th Annual Chamber of Commerce Awards Banquet.  We have a great group of folks receiving awards on Tuesday night at the American Legion Hall. These are local citizens who have given their time, talent, and treasure over the years. We are blessed to be able to honor them with a small token of appreciation. We have sold out of tickets this year and are so excited to see everyone. 

DID YOU KNOW SCHOOL STARTS IN TWO WEEKS? Where did the summer go?  

Check out the attachments to find out the dates and times of the local upcoming events.

Just got a phone call from the Judge's office.  We are under a County Wide EMERGENCY BURN BAN!

Statistical Info about Lee County - Unemployment 2.9%

Census 2020 is right around the corner.  

census.gov

Texas

2018 Population Estimates

28,701,845

Source: Vintage 2018 Population Estimates

Median Household Income

$ 57,051

Source: 2013-2017 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates

Persons in poverty, percent

14.7 %

Source: 2017 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates

Educational Attainment: Percent high school graduate or higher

82.8 %

Source: 2013-2017 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates

Persons without health insurance, percent

18.2 %

Source: 2013-2017 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates

Median Housing Value

$ 151,500

Source: 2013-2017 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates

Total Housing Units

10,611,386

Source: 2013-2017 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates

Number of Companies

2,356,748

Source: 2012 Survey of Business Owners: Company Summary

Male Median Income

$ 34,914

Source: 2013-2017 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates

Female Median Income

$ 22,238

Source: 2013-2017 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates

Veterans

1,482,871

Source: 2013-2017 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates

Percent of households with a broadband Internet subscription

76.8 %

Source: 2013-2017 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates

Have a great weekend!

Today is another beautiful day in the neighborhood!  The temperatures are fantastic and the desire to be outside is overwhelming.  We all want to go walk around the Courthouse and enjoy this anomaly for as long as possible.  It really helps with the numerous projects going on around our office.  The County has graciously placed a beautiful Angel fountain on our porch which is so very peaceful. 

We have been busily preparing for the upcoming Chamber banquet and want you to know that it is going to be fantastic.  We are so pleased to be able to present awards to the wonderful individuals and businesses in our community that work tirelessly to make Giddings and Lee County a great place to live, work, and grow!

We have a few seats left! Call today to reserve your seat...

Finally, it is time for everyone to start getting ready for the Back to School events and activities.  We know you are looking forward to shopping for school clothes and supplies.  Remember to shop local, buy local.  Your local businesses contribute greatly to every event and activity that is held in our community. Your support goes a long way in helping them help our many non-profits and civic organizations that give so much back to our community.
Also, the Annual Back to School Giveaway will be held at the First Assembly of God Church on August 10 starting at 10am. The Church is located at 1050 N. Orange Street.

Thank you to every small business owner who gets up every day to work for the best community in Texas! You guys ROCK!

Check out the new Angel Fountain located on the front yard of our Chamber office, Lee County Museum, and Visitors Center!  The sound of the water is so peaceful...

Have a wonderful Weekend!

Greetings

This beautiful weather is really nice and we are loving it.  Not a lot of people are happy when it is so hot in Texas, but the wind has been gentle and keeps us cool. 

We are still hearing good comments about our recent Grimes Street Music Fest held on July 3rd in downtown Giddings. The happy memories that folks have about street dances warm our heart. Thank you to everyone who came out and supported us. We will do this again soon. 

Our Annual Community and Business Awards are fast approaching and we want to remind you to stay tuned. The announcements are coming as we start revealing award winners next week. This is an

exciting time for our community.  Check out the names on the plaque that Clarence Schulz lovingly created for us to help us remember our Citizens of the Year.

Post Event Report - Grimes Street Music Fest 

The 1st Annual Grimes Street Music Fest was a huge success because of the many sponsors, volunteers, and hard working citizens of Lee County who made it happen. County Judge Paul Fischer and the Lee County Commissioners were very kind to give their permission to use the courthouse lawn for the event which made  it possible. The City of Giddings provided the safety and security of the citizens and allowed the event to take place on Grimes Street.  This was truly a community wide event with around 1000 attendees throughout the evening. The night started out with local Giddings High School student Nate Hendrix playing the National Anthem while the whole crowd sang along.  Texas Unlimited Band led by local musician, Tim Langham played everyone's favorite hits all night. 

There were food tents, bouncy house, and information booths sprinkled across the lawn. Many attendees brought lawn chairs or tail-gated from the street. The best comment of the night was from a local citizen who stated that he had met his wife on the southeast porch of the courthouse 45 years ago at Geburtstag and they were there to dance and celebrate.

We are so proud of our community and their commitment to the idea of sharing their community spirit in a public venue together. We are very fortunate to live in "Rural Texas, the Real Texas"!    

Denice Harlan, PCED, IOM

Join us tonight in downtown Giddings for a street dance and lots of fun! We will dance in the rain if necessary!

Our first Grimes Street Music Fest is going to be epic and memorable! Nate Hendrix, Giddings High School Senior and son of Veronica and Travis Hendrix will lead the National Anthem at 7pm and then Texas Unlimited Band will play all of our favorites.  

Family friendly, free evening at the Courthouse! There will be food, drinks, and giveaways!

Greetings

You heard that right!  We are bringing back the good old fashioned street dance to our downtown courthouse lawn. This is a huge event for Giddings and we hope you can come spend the evening with us.

We will sing the National Anthem at 7pm with local artists leading us. There will be vendors and a concession stand. The street will close at 5pm to through traffic and we will start setting up the grounds. 

We want to give a shout out to our generous volunteers for the two events we hosted this week.  It always seems to come in waves when we are planning activities. 

This week we held the Senior Expo at the American Legion Post 276. We were blessed to have consummate volunteers, Mike Maass and Spencer Schneider cooking lunch while Rusty Scholl was giving commands... The rewards for working in the kitchen with this crew is a fantastic lunch. We are blessed to have these men in our community.  The Senior Expo is designed to bring senior citizens together with businesses and agencies who serve the senior population.  During our event we realized that the agencies and businesses really need to know each other also because of the population they serve.  You never know what will happen at one of our events. 

Going back to Sunday, the Chamber hosted the 10th Annual Festival Hill BBQ Picnic at the First Presbyterian Church. Every year we invite the students and faculty of Festival Hill to join us for an authentic barbeque picnic which consists of barbeque chicken, beef, and pork provided by City Meat Market, and all the sides.  This year we served potato salad, wendish noodles, ranch style beans, and lots of little sides. Desserts were peach cobbler, banana puddings, popcicles, cakes and brownies for our guests. We had so much fun with the students and learned a lot about the selection process for Institute.  Rick Wahrmund was our tour guide through the historic church sanctuary telling the history of the First Presbyterians in Giddings.

Finally, it has been very interesting to try to outguess the weather man every day. We usually bet on them being wrong at least 50% of the time, but lately they have really been struggling to get it right. And, when the news casters get the names of Texas towns wrong, it makes me crazy!  They may have gotten some blistering emails in Austin this week from Giddings. 

We hope you have a great weekend! Watch for more details about the Grimes Street Music Fest.

Denice Harlan, PCED, IOM