The City of Murfreesboro celebrated a milestone Monday with a party on the Civic Plaza and towering cake created by local baker Jay Qualls.
Murfreesboro Mayor Tommy Bragg kicked off the city’s Bicentennial Celebration by challenging its residents to make the most of the next 13 months.
“I want to call on all the citizens of Murfreesboro to celebrate our history, heritage and people who came before,” he said.
The people who came before founded Rutherford County's seat on Oct. 17, 1811, a milestone that will be celebrated through October 2012.
Bragg said he researched city history to find a singular date to mark the bicentennial, but decided in the end a full year was needed to mark the anniversary.
Qualls, of Maples Wedding Cakes, created a monument to the bicentennial and people of Murfreesboro with a five-tiered cake.
The cake was decorated to highlight the themes from each month for the next year. Beginning this month, each of the next 12 months has been assigned themes and are chaired by members of the steering committee.
The foundation of the cake represented the people of Murfreesboro, our heritage and history, Qualls said, pointing out stenciled silhouettes.
The most impressive tier of the cake was decorated like the cupola of the Historic Courthouse, which Qualls said was a “solid representation of our heritage.”
Qualls also touched on other themes by hand painting trees for Our Parks, creating music notes out of icing for Our Music and airbrushing the figures of soldiers for Our Military.
“I really tried to be representatives of the faith of the (yearlong) celebration and the people here …” he said. “This is a great place to live. I love, love, love being a part of this city.”
Qualls’ sentiment was echoed by other speakers at the event.
Former Murfreebsoro Mayor Richard Reeves spoke about all the changes the city has seen over the past 20 years and asked the Murfreesboro City School Board to create a curriculum for teaching Murfreesboro history in elementary school.
Former U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon spoke about how the city needs to remember its past as it plans for the future.
“It took 185 years for Murfreesboro to have a population of 50,000,” Gordon said. “It only took 15 years to double that.”
In the next 15 years, Gordon said the city needs to invest in infrastructure – roads, broadband Internet, and water and sewer – to support growth.
“As we celebrate the past, we need to make plans for the future,” he said. |
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