David and Sandra Gossett richly deserve the recognition given to them during the City Council’s meeting Monday.
The city, which worked with the Gossetts for 17 years to put on the East Carolina Wildlife Arts Festival and North Carolina Decoy Carving Championships, presented the couple with a clock, representing all the time the Gossetts spent helping make the festival a success. David Gossett served as the festival’s show chairman for 17 years. And for the same amount of time, Sandra Gossett recruited and coordinated festival exhibitors.
The Gossetts are members of the East Carolina Wildfowl Guild, which organizes the festival each year, relying heavily on its members to do their parts.
An inscription on the clock reads: “With gratitude from the City of Washington for your countless hours spent organizing the East Carolina Wildlife Arts Festival.”
In presenting the clock to the Gossetts, Mayor Archie Jennings said, “We thought it was important on behalf of the city to recognize your efforts formally. We chose this as a memento because time is the only debt that can’t be repaid. We know how much time the two of you invested in this festival. So let us say officially and for the record you did a first-class job.”
Jennings is right.
In the summer of 2006, the guild approached and persuaded the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission to let the guild sponsor a national competition as the way to choose the artwork that will be used to produce the state’s annual waterfowl stamp, according to David Gossett. The Gossetts were there for those competitions.
The Gossetts and other guild members were always looking for new things to add to the festival. That’s how the inclusion of DockDogs competitions in the festival came about.
The Gossetts have “retired” from helping organize and run the festival.
That retirement is a well-deserved one.
Thanks, David and Sandra, for your work in creating one of the city’s signature festivals.