By Bethan Adams
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The 38th annual Tyrone Founders Day is a weeklong festival this year. The schedule ranges from new events, like a kids’ fishing rodeo (worms provided), to old favorites, featuring Saturday night fireworks.

Jennifer Patton, recreation director, said the town was seeking more community involvement by prolonging the festival from Sunday to Sunday, Sept. 13-21.

The festival is full of firsts, including the All-Star wrestling match Sept. 21.

Patton said Randy Mundy of West Fayette Barbell, who helped organize the Strong Man contest for Saturday, proposed the wrestling match. Patton said Mundy contacted nine wrestlers for the event. Younger, more current wrestlers, like Michael Stevens, will be competing as well as some old school wrestlers like Michael Kirchner, also known as “Leatherface.”

Saturday will also feature five bands competing in the Founders Day Battle of the Bands. The performers range from pop to punk, including All The Rest, the first band to record at Zac Brown’s Crow’s Nest studio as an unsigned band.

Patton, who has led the planning of Founders Day alongside her co-worker Lynda Owens, said she has 25 volunteers, all Fayette County citizens.

“Without volunteers we couldn’t do this,” she said.