ELKVIEW, W.Va — It will take more than a worldwide pandemic to stop the nation’s longest-running community reunion. The 119th Pinch reunion will happen this year live from the reunion grounds in northern Kanawha County.
“This event has taken place through the Depression, wars and armed conflicts, the Civil Rights movement, and natural disasters. We will not let a pandemic stop the Pinch Reunion this year,” said David Frecks, a member of the reunion committee in an appearance on MetroNews Talkline Friday.
However, it’s unlikely the original organizers of the reunion more than a century ago could have ever envisioned anything quite like the plan for the 2020 events.
“There’s going to be a rock concert with just a few people there to run the thing There will be nobody to watch, but it will be live on our Facebook Page and we hope people will tune in an check it out,” said Frecks.
The committee decided to make the reunion a virtual event as much as possible. A concert will originate live and streamed to Facebook from the actual grounds of the reunion and Frecks said that was extremely important.
“Back when we were gifted the property we use, in the contract it said in order to keep the property and use it we had to have an event every year and not miss a year,” Frecks explained. “We decided the only way we could do it within the Governor’s guidelines was to do something virtually, but we wanted to do it live from the property to honor the spirit and essence of the contract to continue the reunion properly. “
A couple of other virtual events like a 5-K run and car show didn’t work out quite as well as organizers had hoped. Frecks believes most of us are burned out on virtual anything as a replacement for a live event. However, there was a reunion pageant the winners will be announced from the stage just ahead of the concert.
The concert gets started Saturday evening live on the Pinch Reunion West Virginia Facebook Page.