ohio county tourism commission

Ohio County Tourism Visitors Center-Rising Sun, IN

Information

THE VISITORS CENTER WILL BE CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC THROUGHOUT 2020.  (Visitors can visit the tiny unmanned Visitors Center located in the parking lot of our main office. Brochures are also available inside the Rising Star Casino Resort 24/7. For additional assistance, e-mail [email protected].)

Located at 217 N. High Street in Rising Sun, the Ohio County Tourism Visitors Center is staffed and waiting to assist locals and visitors alike with Ohio County and State information. On-site staff over materials on attractions, shops, restaurants, lodgings and events.  The staff is also available to help book group tours.

Unoccupied for over two years, the Center’s 1950s structure was a Gulf gas station, grocery store, and lastly a veterinarian’s office. Purchased in 2018 by the Ohio County Convention, Tourism and Visitors Commission, the inside was extensively renovated. With minimal updating to the exterior, the Commission kept the remaining two outdoor light fixtures and the stand-alone lighted sign frame.

Currently the Center rents golf carts to tourists (thanks to grants from the Ohio County Community Foundation and Rising Sun Regional Foundation), and hosts a seasonal Farmer’s Market, Lion’s Club fundraisers, community-wide yard sale participants, and the Halloween/Santa House.

For more information, contact the Ohio County Visitors Center at (812) 438-4933 or visit them on their website at enjoyrisingsun.com. They can be found on Facebook at Rising Sun/Ohio County Tourism and on Twitter.

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Bourbon Casual – Come enjoy the casual side of travel.

Shepherdsville in Bullitt County KY is the Trailhead of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. Located on I-65 only 20 minutes south of downtown Louisville.

We have info on attractions, events, historic sites and many comfortable and affordable lodging and dining options. Experience the Wine, Whiskey & Ale Trail

Experience how the world’s number-one Bourbon is made from grain to bottle at this 200-year-old landmark. Guided tours available. Must be 21.

More than 16,000 plus acres of wildlife sanctuary, landscaped gardens and arboretum which offers programs and events to educate and entertain.

Visit one or all four award-winning wineries and enjoy a relaxing day in beautiful settings while visiting the vineyards and tasting rooms.

Experience the world’s longest go-kart track which is sure to thrill visitors of all ages. Seasonal aquatic bumber cars, miniature golf and more!

Rated a Top 10 New Course in America for 2008 by Golf Digest, Heritage Hill Golf Club is an 18-hole championship golf course.

350 indoor and 350 outdoor booths with 70,000 sq ft of bargains! Open all year round on Saturdays and Sundays. Food court inside.

Tour the 19th century stone jail and century-old courthouse. Museum features changing displays chronicling nearly 200 years of local history.

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Welcome to SHEPHERDSVILLE, KY!

Bourbon casual adventure.

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Only 20 miles south of Louisville on I-65.

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Parkersburg CVB updates officials on tourism

Wood county officials visited the parkersburg welcome center during monday’s county commission meeting for an update on tourism in the area..

PARKERSBURG, W.Va . (WTAP) - Wood County officials visited the Parkersburg Welcome Center during Monday’s county commission meeting for an update on tourism in the area.

Parkersburg Convention and Visitors Bureau President Mark Lewis shared recent updates about the CVB, including placing community garden beds behind the Visitors Center and adding a new part time position to help deal with an increase of visitors over the summer. Lewis also mentioned the West Virginia Legislature’s Interim Committee Meetings, which are set to take place in Parkersburg this September.

Lewis said those interim committee meetings will be a valuable way to show state officials what the Mid-Ohio Valley has to offer. “One of the great things about it is, they’ll be able to see Blennerhassett Island firsthand,” he said. “We’re going to do an event out there. Blennerhassett Island is one of the gems, absolute gems, of our state park system. So getting them out there to see it firsthand is fantastic.”

Lewis also discussed the CVB’s new marketing initiatives, like placing marketing booklets in Columbus and Pittsburgh newspapers and a digital marketing campaign.

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‘it was a great year…’: wood county officials tour welcome center facility, receive tourism update.

Greater Parkersburg Convention and Visitors Bureau President and CEO Mark Lewis talked with county officials Monday regarding what the organization has been doing since moving into their new building, the former Point Park Marketplace, two years ago as well as plans for the upcoming tourism season. (Photo by Brett Dunlap)

PARKERSBURG — The head of the Greater Parkersburg Convention and Visitors Bureau gave county officials a tour of the welcome center facility and gave an update on the activities and successes the organization has had since opening the center a couple years ago.

Bureau President and CEO Mark Lewis took county officials through the facility at 113 Ann St. on Monday. The CVB has been operating out of the building, the former Point Park Marketplace by the floodwall near the gate to Point Park, for over two years as updates and renovations have been done to the building.

Lewis showed what has been done to the building from updated facilities to renovated office space, Community garden beds outside the building where groups around the community have rented out beds and planted different things.

“There were over 7,000 visitors to the center in its first year of operation,” Lewis said, adding as compared to 711 in 2019 at the old location at 350 Seventh St. in Parkersburg before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have many more opportunities to tell people about the great stuff we have here,” Lewis added. “People come primarily to go to (Blennerhassett Island), they see the welcome center, they come over here and we can tell them about more attractions in the area.

Greater Parkersburg Convention and Visitors Bureau President and CEO Mark Lewis shows Wood County Administrator Marty Seufer the Community Garden beds outside their building near the floodwall where groups around the community have rented out beds and planted different things. (Photo by Brett Dunlap)

“Many people who have come here don’t know about Henderson Hall or the Oil and Gas Museum.”

Last year, attendance at the Oil and Gas Museum doubled and Henderson Hall saw an increase in visitors, he said.

“We think a lot of that is directly attributable to our ability down here to tell people,” Lewis said. “It was a great year and we are looking forward to another great year here.”

They have a volunteer staff of 26 people as well as a paid staff of three full-time and two part- time. They are adding a part-time position this summer to deal with the serious increase in visitors on Friday and Saturday. There are plans to eventually add another full-time position.

Lewis said they plan to put a big tent behind the building, similar to the one at Bicentennial Park to expand the site’s ability to host events. They are also looking for unique designs for permanent signage on the outside of the building as well as a possible canopy for the front of the building.

They also have new marketing efforts, including inserting 30,000 eight-page booklets in the Columbus Dispatch and 41,000 in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette on June 9. Their new comprehensive digital campaign includes paid search, digital display, native content, streaming television and Facebook.

The campaign will generate over 2.2 million impressions and over 15,000 clicks to the CVB website, Lewis said.

The CVB appears monthly on “Good Day Marketplace” on the ABC and FOX affiliates in Columbus with a pre-recorded segment highlighting Parkersburg. Their print campaign includes WV Living, Blue Ridge Outdoors, Ohio Magazine, Ohio Co-op, Farm & Dairy (in Ohio and western Pennsylvania) and WV Executive.

Lewis said they have gotten a lot of response from their ads in Farm & Dairy where he has actually talked to people out and about who heard about the area from that advertising.

“Ohio and West Virginia are our primary market,” Lewis said, adding they are working to expand into Pennsylvania.

They will also be shooting new videos this summer and producing new TV spots as well as a new photo shoot for other materials.

CVB officials are still looking at finding someone who can do bicycle and kayak rentals for the river and the new riverfront trail.

Lewis thanked the Wood County Commission for their support.

“We would not be in this building without you guys,” he said.

Lewis commended the commission for understanding what tourism can bring to the area.

He outlined other plans to highlight area attractions at the Mid-Ohio Valley Regional Airport as well as marketing pushes in the Charlotte, N.C., area where flights from the airport usually go.

Officials are looking at holding events at the new Wood County Resiliency Center which is expected to be completed sometime in August. Organizations like the Parkersburg Boys and Girls Club, the Chamber of Commerce of the Mid-Ohio Valley and others have expressed interest in having events there. Lewis said the West Virginia Legislature is planning to hold interim sessions in Parkersburg in September at a few different spots in the area, including the Resiliency Center.

“We want the legislature to see that building and do one of their breakout sessions there,” Lewis said. “This will be the first time the interim sessions will come to Parkersburg in about 20 years.”

Brett Dunlap can be reached at [email protected]

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More than $21 million in state funding awarded to projects in Gallia County

GALLIPOLIS, Ohio (WSAZ) - Various projects in Gallia County, Ohio have financial support from Gov. Mike DeWine’s office. So far in 2024, more than $21 million has been awarded to construction projects across the county.

These are financial awards from Ohio’s Appalachian Community Grant Program. Earlier this year, the Gallipolis City School District and Gallia County Local School District were each awarded more than $2.5 million for school-based health clinics. Holzer was also awarded a $7 million grant to construct a child care center.

In May, the city of Gallipolis was awarded $9 million for riverfront upgrades and park amenities.

“We’re addressing downtown quality of life, the streetscape, and the riverfront from a recreation and tourism standpoint. That’s huge,” said Gallia County Economic Development Director Cole Massie.

Upgrades include terraced seating along the banks, an event stage, and a handicap walkway with improved lighting along the riverfront.

“We’ll have bigger boat docks, newer boat docks, one that will allow for sternwheelers to come in and house boats,” said Gallipolis City Commission President Michael Fulks. “Towns around here have different boating activities and sternwheel regattas. We’ve not been able to have or house things like that. Hopefully, with the addition of this stuff, we can entice some of those people to come here.”

It’s a project that city and county leaders are proud of and are committed to completing during the next two years.

“Dow Saunders, who recently passed away and was our city manager, was really the heart and soul behind this project. It was his vision,” Massie said.

“I just wish that he could have been here and received it and know that his work was appreciated and well received within the state,” Fulks said.

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Over the Garden Fence: Arbor Day was a full day of 'tree thinking' in and around Bucyrus

For most of Bucyrus' citizens, Arbor Day arrived quietly Friday, April 26. Just a little over a week earlier that tornado had torn through our "home sweet home." Trees were still spewed in many directions having been ripped from the ground in seconds. The cleanup was still going on. It would continue.

Arbor Day is a last Friday in April tradition in Ohio. You just do not cancel that. The Bucyrus Tree Commission had made plans ahead of time for three events that day. Onward we forged. We started at the Elementary School and worked with youngsters who represented the grade levels along with two aides and the principal. The tree planting there was a locust, one with small compound leaflets and an open form in branching − a sunburst.

The second tree planting was a gift from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Forestry. That one was planned for a location near our Aumiller Park carillon bell tower. Jeff Panovich had selected this spot and marked it. Around 11 a.m. in peaceful sunshine the tree was delivered from Jeff's truck. Mayor Bruce Truka arrived ready to share his Arbor Day proclamation.

We were honored with the presence of Katie Gerber, a state service forester from Perrysville who came to bring us a proclamation honoring the Division's 75th year in Ohio. In addition, Katie had a post with a plaque explaining the purpose of the planting of this bur oak tree.

Andy Furner, Panovich and I took turns digging the hole. The men used a post hole digger to manage the placement of the plaque commemorating this day. Our county's name is in place with the division and ODNR's colorful logo at the top inside the numeral 75.

Safety Service Director Tom Starner was there and supplied the water − a saving moment for securing the Sakrete  around the permanent post marker. Elaine Naples, tourism consultant for the Visitors' Bureau, was with us. 

Red maple at the high school, more planting at Elementary School

Around 1 p.m. the Arbor Day observances continued when Bucyrus High School student representatives joined the commissioners in planting a red maple tree; the proclamation was read for the third time.

And then it was back to Bucyrus Elementary where third grade teachers and students and special needs students and instructors met the tree commissioners and members of the Earth, Wind and Flowers Garden Club. Andy, Jeff, Sarah Kalb and Deb Pigman presented three types of tree seedlings to the children. Overcap oaks, white pines and red maples went home with a challenge of planting and caring for them for two years. The species are native to our area and should be helpful replacements for our losses.

That was a full day of tree thinking with city involvement, state involvement and children becoming stakeholders in a future with trees. Please, as you cruise through the park, stop and take a look at this bur oak − a gift from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Forestry.

There is something on my mind today. It is my own reflection. In all of the positivism of Arbor Day, not one event made the front page while this week's drug bust carried a front page photo of marijuana growing. My opinion cries out for the benefits of trees, quietly replacing losses.

Still life is good.

Mary Lee Minor is a member of the Earth, Wind and Flowers Garden Club, an accredited master gardener, a flower show judge for the Ohio Association of Garden Clubs and a former sixth grade teacher.