Larry Di Giovanni/Mount Vernon News
Fire and Ice event volunteers Riana McVicker, left, and Eunah Lee, both juniors at Centerburg High School, busy themselves placing and lighting the final luminaries at Honey Run Waterfall park late Saturday afternoon. The first visitors arrived to view the luminary work about an hour later. [request]
MILLWOOD — Despite rain earlier in the day Saturday, and with a new shuttle system taking Fire and Ice event visitors to and from Honey Run Waterfall park to view more than 600 luminaries, the sixth annual Fire and Ice event received a glowing reception.
And not just because the luminaries with their snowflake cut-out pattern were artistically appreciated by an estimated 1,500 people visiting the park that evening. They also enjoyed the impressive amount of walking trail lit up to take people either to the waterfall itself, or down another path all the way to the Kokosing State Scenic River.
That wasn’t the case this time. Knox County Park District Director Lori Totman credited Saturday’s success in part to Mike Brinning, Fire and Ice Committee chairman. He helped lead the effort to come up with a mass transit traffic solution. The event ran from 5:30-8:30 p.m., and Totman also credited dozens of volunteers who showed up to place and light the luminaries, help with traffic flow, and direct visitors where they needed to be going along the Honey Run Waterfall trails. Knox County Sheriff’s officers helped with traffic flow near roads along the church entrance.
“The rain has stopped, and it’s been a spectacular turnout so far,” Brinning said about a half hour into the event start time. “This was the first year with this new shuttle system and we didn’t know what to completely expect. There are always things that can happen. But everything is going as planned so far. We’re very excited.”
Among the families to visit the luminaries placed around Honey Run Waterfall included Nick and Stephanie Blanchard of Mount Vernon, along with their 3-year-old son, Grayson. The Blanchards are avid about kayaking in Knox County, and they have visited Honey Run Waterfall nearly every season of the year. It was their first time visiting Fire and Ice, and they thoroughly enjoyed it. Even at a young age, Grayson marvels at the waterfall’s splendor, his mom said.
“It’s nice to see the waterfall area during the change from season to season,” said Nick Blanchard. “We may just make it a family tradition to come out here every year to Fire and Ice.”
Jason VanHoose, a firefighter with the Eastern Knox County Joint Fire District, inspected paths along the waterfall trails to see if there were any safety issues at hand. He noted that despite rain earlier, they were in good shape. There was an ambulance parked across the street near the KAT shuttles in case it was needed. Not far away — at their fire station in Danville — was a side-by-side vehicle that could be driven through the woods in the event of an emergency.
“You’ve got to plan for anything and everything,” VanHoose said. “That’s why this (being a firefighter/paramedic) is the greatest job ever. It’s always something different.”
Nicki McVicker let her daughter, Riana, and her friend — 16-year-old foreign exchange student Eunah Lee of South Korea — be Fire and Ice volunteers to experience something new and different in a beautiful, natural setting. The two, who are juniors at Centerburg High School, were a bundle of energy around Honey Run Waterfall, setting up luminaries just a few yards away from the waterfall itself, which is 25 feet high. The waterfall is surrounded by blackhand sandstone cliffs.
“We had fun exploring all of the area around here,” Riana said, noting that to place luminaries at the top of the waterfall was something of a challenge.
“Yes, and someone who volunteers with the cleanup will have to go up there and get them down,” Totman said later, smiling. But it’s all in a day’s work for those who volunteer for Knox County parks.
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