Welcome to our great big family reunion, the Heart of Virginia Festival. We're glad you could come.

On a cold January day 20 years ago, an organizer of an event that had never happened said the first-ever Heart of Virginia Festival would focus attention on our community and "reflect the creativity, humor, energy and good judgment of our people."

Four months later the festival made its debut to a standing ovation. And every May we rejoin ourselves in a communal expression of pride and goodwill, on our feet applauding all that is good about our family here in the heart of Virginia. We are clapping still.

The seeds planted by so many hardworking festival committee members in 1978-79 have blossomed and grown. During the past 20 years the festival has been nurtured. We have cultivated a celebration that unites us all for one glorious weekend of fun and fellowship. We have become bigger. We have become better. A few blocks of downtown Farmville become a giant neighborhood where we all live, for one day a family together. The streets, dappled with sunshine breezes and the aroma of good food, dance to the sound of music and our own hellos to one another. Under the shade of trees, we take a moment's pause to sip something cool, eat something good, and wonder what the parade of people passing before us means.

It is as close as a community can get to celebrating Thanksgiving and Happy Birthday together. It's an anniversary. But, more than anything, it's a family reunion. The great thing about this family reunion is that you can have any last name in the world and be home among friends. You are a member of the family, whether people call you Jones, or Reid, or Williams. Last names and addresses count for nothing. We share a moment together in the spring as the world uncovers itself from the cold and affirms its faith in a better season. And we affirm our faith in each other.

We are teachers, bankers, builders, refuse collectors. We are doctors, nurses, mail carriers, and students. We are old and young. We are in between. Our family stretches for miles around. We sleep in farmhouses and apartments. We drive cars. We ride the bus. We believe one way, or another, about different things, but we call the same place home. We are the heart of Virginia.

We share the same joys in the first steps our children take. We wonder about tomorrow. We know what it is to believe in things we can't see and to doubt some things we do see. We make mistakes. We try to collect them. We forgive. We forget. We are the heart of Virginia.

This is no fancy dress occasion. It's real. We come as we are. Wear a smile. The Festival's first chairman said, "We want to encourage and build on the pride and unity that's already a large part of this community." And so we have.

As the sky-which so often seems to shine approvingly on our reunion-settles down behind the trees and the fireworks go bursting in air, we give proof through the night that our community, our family, is still there. The colored lights sparkle and flash in the night sky as if it were some huge sprawling Christmas Tree grown right from each of us, every one of us a necessary root. Without any one of us the heart of Virginia would not beat as strong and true.

We're all essential. We're all a part of the family. So welcome home. We're glad to have you. Loosen up that smile. Carry the feeling as long as you can.