By Sonny Simmons
The 2nd annual UKC Winter Classic Coon Hunt and Bench Show was a huge success. The City of Batesville, the Panola Partnership and Roy Hyde and the team at the Batesville Civic Center all worked together to help make this year’s event better than ever.

 In my conversations with many of the participants we were very successful. The Panola Partnership had a welcome and information booth that directed participants to various locations like restaurants, motels, retailers and other points of interest in the area. This year we also had a map of the United States and we asked participants to put a colored pin in the map showing us where they were from. We learned that we had at least 23 states represented from as far away as Seattle, Washington; Las Vegas, Nevada; northern Vermont and even one from Canada.
Everyone seemed to have a great time and from all the positive comments we expect next year’s event to be even bigger.

The most important thing that events like this bring to a small community like Batesville is exposure to a large number people from across the country and the immediate economic impact it has on our local businesses. It is estimated that the economic impact on the community for the week of the event will be somewhere in the $2 Million range. This is lot of new money coming into town over a very short period of time.

We are constantly reaching out to find ways to generate additional revenue for Panola County’s businesses and this year’s UKC event is just one of the many ways we can do this.

If you did not attend this year’s event, I encourage you to attend next year. There is something for everyone to see and enjoy. If you are a hunter, there are vendors that sell all kind of hunting related merchandise. The bench show is great fun for children and the entire family. The dogs that are entered in the bench show competition are really something to see.

 And the best part is, the entire event is open to the public and with free admission.