To the editor:

On behalf of the staff, teachers, students and board of directors of the Americana Music Academy, I’d like to send out a very big thank you to the Lawrence community for the success of the Killkenny Festival in South Park on Saturday, July 18.

We were thrilled by the 16 local bands that volunteered their performances, and were deeply appreciative of the amazing weather (81 degrees in July?). But mostly we were grateful for all the folks who came out, brought their lawn chairs and their families and stayed a large portion of the day.

Killkenny was such a success that we already have begun planning next year’s festival. We were honored to have provided Lawrence with a wonderful, FREE midsummer event in the park. We made enough from our concessions to help the academy get through the rest of the summer and be ready for our new crop of students this fall.

Our special thanks goes to the City of Lawrence for cooperation in all the many steps it took to make this event successful for our school and the community.

The AMA motto is “Creating Community through Music,” and the Killkenny Festival truly was an expression of that — so many moms, dads, kids, grandparents and friends sitting on the lawn together, enjoying a peaceful day of great American music. Life rarely gets better than that.

We hope that this year’s festival is the first of many more to come.