New Leadership Expected for 50th Brown Trout Festival

Peggy Donakowski has served as the president of the Brown Trout Festival for the past 11 years. With her term coming to an end, she’s decided not to run again.

She cites a lack of teamwork on the board as being one of the main reasons.  “Sometimes it feels like they don’t understand that all of this work now is going to come together,” she said. “You can’t just come in for a 10-day period of the festival itself. You have to help all year round also.”

Under new leadership, there’s concern when it comes to activities for next year, especially with it being the 50th. “There’s a lot of people and a lot of our sponsors that we’ve had,” said Barbara Rigg, vice president of the festival. “We’ve had great sponsors throughout the whole community, and I don’t want to see them disappointed with what happens with the 50th.”

Donakowski said the board will have to try and get more service clubs to participate then they currently have, otherwise there could be significant changes when July rolls around. “They really do need more service clubs because of the man power,” she said. “I think that’s going to be a lot of the talks for them this year. If not, then they’re just going to have to cut out some of the events. In my opinion I think they would have to.”

The brown trout festival board is expected to select a new president next month. Donakowski added she hopes the new president will come in with an understanding of how much work is involved.