The Town They Could Not Cancel

Quiet Echo — “The Town They Could Not Cancel” Host: Chloe Papadakis | Cedar Valley News | September 24, 2026 When the committee behind the 30-year Tennessee Soybean Festival canceled it in May, a local baker named John Sellers and a volunteer board built a new grassroots festival from scratch — and this month, September 8 through 12, the town gathered anyway. Chloe Papadakis, who plans gatherings for a living, tells the story and draws out what those volunteers proved: a festival is not the committee, the banner, or the name on the permit, and the committee never owned the one thing which matters — a town’s stubborn will to gather. A reflection on how we hand the things which hold us together up to “somebody official” and forget we were always in charge, on the invisible labor of building rather than merely attending (the organizer who gave sixty days so a parade could exist), and on the truth reality just confirmed in Tennessee: a committee can cancel an event, but it can never cancel a town. Write to us. What gathering in your town is being kept alive by a handful of tired hands? Send a letter to our Letters to the Editor page: https://bit.ly/40p8jKy Get Cedar Valley News free, every morning. Sign up here: https://publicationconsultants.aweb.page/daily-cedar-valley-news Quiet Echo is part of the fictional Cedar Valley News series, written by Evan Swensen, Publisher, and Claude Marshall, AI Developmental Editor. While Chloe Papadakis and the town of Cedar Valley are fictional, John Sellers and Martin’s Grassroots Soybean Festival, in Martin, Tennessee, are real. After the Tennessee Soybean Festival, a tradition of more than 30 years, was canceled in May 2026, Mr. Sellers, a local baker, and a seven-member volunteer board — Shelby Hatchel, Tamara Kelso, Keithon Currie, Alex Gallien, Matt Lampley, Chad Brewer, and Mr. Sellers — registered a separate festival and built it from the ground up, unable to use the former committee’s name or structure. Held September 8 through 12, 2026, it drew the town with a parade, a farmers market, live music, and a family-night cookout; organizers raised more than $100,000, with help arriving after they had begun, including $30,000 from the City of Martin and $25,000 from the Tennessee Department of Agriculture, and pledged proceeds to the fire department’s Friend of a Firefighter campaign. Sources: The Pacer (University of Tennessee at Martin), the festival organizers, and WPSD Local 6, 2026.