It just doesn’t get much better than last weekend.

For the 38th time, Clinton County residents joined with friends, neighbors, visitors and relatives for the community’s biggest gathering downtown, the Foothills Festival.

After a year-long effort of planning and plotting, the Foothills Festival Planning Committee pulled off one of its best efforts in years, and by the way, kudos to whomever ordered last weekend’s weather – temperatures in the mid 70s, sunny skies and just enough breeze to make it an early fall paradise.

From the musical entertainment to the food, to the crowds, to the weather, Foothills 38 was a success from start to end.

People came Friday for a parade that lasted well over an hour and into the darkness, and they came back on Saturday, early for the 5K run and stayed throughout the day, gathering on Cumberland Street for one of the best attended, and most entertaining Foothills Lip Sync Contests in the event’s history.

There was singing and playing and dancing – on the stages and in the streets and even in the courthouse lawn.

Treasures were aplenty all around the square – some old, some new and some made right in front of our eyes.

Through it all, the Clinton County News was on hand, covering – and enjoying it all, right along with the rest of you.

As has long been the tradition, this week’s post-Foothills edition of the Clinton County News is chock-full of photos made by Brett Gibson and Al Gibson. After looking through literally thousands of photo files, the best have been chosen and are published in these pages this week. We hope you enjoy.

In the photos shown here, the crowd above filled Cumberland Street for the Saturday Lip Sync. Below, the lip sync crowd stood and reacted to a patriotic act. At left, Virginia Conner and Jimmy Smith entertained the crowd – and won the 19 and over Lip Sync division – with this “I Ain’t Your Mama” act.

Again, we offer our thanks, and our congratulations – to the Foothills Festival Planning Committee on a job well done, and will once again look forward to 2018, when we sent out the familiar invitation to … Come See It Our Way!