As readers may have noticed over the past week, a single subject has dominated the front page — this year’s Dogwood Fine Arts Festival.

The annual celebration of music, writing, storytelling and various other forms of the humanities officially kicks off its 25th year Thursday, with events and festivities taking place through the 15.

We won’t bother you with the details here — we have a calendar that will run on front page of Friday’s paper featuring the different artists and activities taking place during the 10-day event, with times, locations, ticket prices and everything you’ll need to plan your festival week.

Instead, we want to use this space to encourage Dowagiac residents to support the festival as it celebrates a milestone year.

As we have stated before, one of the pillars of this outstanding community has been our commitment to supporting the arts. Be it through the various artistic opportunities given to students through the school district and college, the collection of public art that enhances our streets and parks or the drama and comedies presented at Beckwith Theater, the arts thrive as brightly here in Dowagiac as they do in much larger cities.

Dogwood is perhaps the largest expression of that love for the humanities, giving residents and visitors alike the chance to experience the works of master artists, that many would not get a chance to meet otherwise.

In addition to the events offered to the public, organizers with the festival also make sure that many of the visiting performers also visit the local schools to share their craft with our community’s developing minds. As organizers have said this year, there are a scant few student still in school in Dowagiac that have not been touched in some way by the festival.

We feel this, at the very least, is a reason why Dogwood should exist, and why our community needs to continue to support it.

So while our paper will continue to cover this year’s festival to our utmost ability, we encourage our readers to take some time out of their busy lives to visit one or more events. We promise it will be time and money well spent.

 

Opinions expressed are those of the editorial board consisting of Publisher Michael Caldwell and editors Ambrosia Neldon, Craig Haupert, Ted Yoakum and Scott Novak.