Starke County Employees Enjoy Appreciation Picnic

David Pearman
David Pearman
Yesterday afternoon’s weather provided a brief respite from the sticky, humid heat and heavy rains that have been taking turns around the area, and Starke County officials jumped at the opportunity to provide an appreciation day for county employees. County Council President Dave Pearman said it’s a concept that they’ve tossed around for a while and, finally, they decided to just get the ball rolling and start a new tradition.

“We actually do a Christmas party every year and we said, ‘You know, it sure would be nice to do something when it was warm and when it was nice out,’ and we’ve actually been kicking around the idea of a picnic for the last couple years,” Pearman said. “We were talking the other day and we said, ‘You know what, let’s just pick a day and do it.’ So we decided to have a little picnic to show all of our employees how much we appreciate their hard work here in Starke County.”

Despite the lack of centralization of county employees, Pearman said they had a great turnout – no surprise there with a cook-out including hotdogs and a variety of condiments, chips and soda. The picnic, held behind the county annex building, brought in employees from as far as the highway garage and as near as the annex building itself.

“It’s been great,” Pearman said. “The other thing is that typically, because there is some real estate between each one of the departments, a lot of the time things are done separately. We’ve had representation from the county garage to the sheriff’s department to the annex to the courthouse building, and the EMS has been floating in and out, as well as other offices that are spread out throughout the community. So we’ve been really excited about the turnout.”

Pearman said they’d like to hold this appreciation picnic annually and he hopes the county employees like the idea as well.