Approximately 2,000 view eclipse from Copperas Cove City Park

By BRITTANY FHOLER

Cove Leader-Press

Several thousand attended the city’s fourth annual Copperas Cove spring festival, which coincided with the total solar eclipse on Monday.

The Spring into the Eclipse Festival featured market vendors, several food trucks, live music on Saturday and Sunday, plus Frisbee Disc dog shows Sunday afternoon and an adult softball tournament on Saturday.

While the city park was not packed like it has been previously during Rabbit Fest or previous events, Ashley Wilson, Special Events Coordinator for the City of Copperas Cove, said she noticed a steady flow of cars coming in and cars leaving and people walking around.

Wilson said that an estimated 4,000 turned out over Saturday and Sunday, and on Monday, approximately 2,000 turned out to City Park to view the eclipse and see the vendors.

“I met a family from Germany yesterday that are here in Copperas Cove from Germany for the Eclipse,” Wilson said. She pointed out another couple that had mentioned they were from Oregon. “Then we've had people from California and New York show up here too. I've seen a lot more of out-of-towners.”

Saturday’s weather did put a slight damper on people coming out, but the beautiful weather Sunday and Monday allowed for more to come out and take part in the fun.

“It's actually really great,” Wilson said about the decision to tie the festival in with the solar eclipse. “I just feel that you know, it is a once in a lifetime experience to witness a solar eclipse, especially with your family, your loved ones, your friends and everybody here. I think it's great, especially just being able to move the Spring Fest to this weekend, and just with it already being an established event, I think that does help with it too.”

There were 23 market vendors and approximately 15 food trucks, Wilson said.

The city/Special Events booth sold solar eclipse shirts, koozies and more merchandize, which Wilson said would continue to be for sale at the Copperas Cove Civic Center after the eclipse.

They are still available at reduced prices at the Parks & Recreation offices located at the Civic Center, open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

One vendor that traveled a distance to Copperas Cove was Pink Elegance, a “western glam” themed boutique.

Vanessa Galindo describes her shop as a Western glam mobile boutique. Galindo came from Joshua, Texas, south of Fort Worth and more than two hours away.

Galindo said she found out about the festival through social media and made the decision to sign up as a vendor to take advantage of the availability and to expand her customer base.

“I love it. I love being part of this community and just connecting with my customers and helping them with their outfits,” Galindo said about how the weekend had gone.

Betty Owens took her six-year-old niece, Aria, and one-year-old nephew, Ibohn, to the Festival on Sunday. She said she looked up events happening over the weekend and came across the Spring into the Eclipse Festival and decided to bring them out.

“We had a good time!” Owens said. “She saw the bouncy houses when we first came, so we went in there, played all the games in there, then we stopped and got some snow cones. We’re going to check out a few more vendors. We got some toys, and he’s been dancing to the music since we got here.”

Owens said that she liked that the city had so much to offer this weekend in gearing up for the eclipse.

“I'm actually glad about that because I live here in Copperas Cove, and I was nervous that there wasn’t a lot to do because this is one of the smaller cities, but this was actually really cool, laid back,” Owens said. “Perfect for a Sunday, before they get ready for school for the week.”

Owens gave a shout out to the Library for providing her with free solar eclipse glasses.

Several churches offered up parking spaces on their properties during the viewing of the eclipse, including First Baptist Church, First Presbyterian Church, Grace United Methodist Church, Immanuel Lutheran Church and more.

Several of these churches are also part of the Cove Ministerial Alliance which had a booth set up at the Spring into the Eclipse Festival, complete with a “prayer wall” where people could stop and write down their prayer requests or pray over the requests already written down.

Jacob Krumwidde, with First Baptist Church, was one of the volunteers manning the booth on Sunday evening.

“Our goal in this booth is the wall is there for people to write prayers that they want answered and want prayer on, and then to be able to engage with people and pray for their needs and just be there to spread the word and plant seeds,” Krumwidde said.

Krumwidde said that the response from the people attending the festival had been amazing.

“Yesterday, we came out here with 250 gospel tracts printed, and we handed out somewhere close to 150, and I think close to that number of New Testaments in people's hands,” Krumwidde said. “There's been a lot of people coming and actually asking for prayer and interacting with us. It’s been really, really positive. A lot of people wanting to hear what we have to say and actually asking further questions and actually trying to grow in the community.”

Krumwidde said that being able to interact with people who are visiting from everywhere has been a huge opportunity.

“The world’s hurting now. We need Christ, and every opportunity like this we get where we can come out, and it’s nice for the community coming to reach. It’s really special for this event because the intent was it’s going to be people from all over the country and possibly all over the world coming down here to view this eclipse. This is an opportunity to not just minister to those right here in Cove, but actually reach out and expand that reach and be able to reach out to people that might be from anywhere else in the world, just planting this word and getting that word out.  There is this wondrous thing going on here, this eclipse, but the Creator who made it is caring for us right now.”