KC Hall

EDITORIAL

On the first day of February there was a huge and highly successful job fair, primarily designed to assist persons laid off due to Luminant’s closing. Within a week, Tiger football fans celebrated the 2017 state championship with a huge banquet and program. The next night dads and daughters danced the night away in the annual event held by the Tiger booster club. In the middle of the month, the first of four mammoth Lenten fish fries drew a line literally out the door. The night after that, the Rockdale Police Department and Rockdale Volunteer Fire Department honored their top members over the past year. That was on a Friday. The next Monday, after the second fish fry, many of those same persons returned for an appreciation supper. What do all these events have in common? They were all held in the same place, the Rock-dale KC Hall. And that listing doesn’t include a couple of food giveaways in the parking lot or regularly scheduled game nights. Rockdale residents are so used to this magnificent facility, we might be tempted to take it for granted, to assume it’s just always been here, as familiar as US 79. We shouldn’t. In 1979, newly organized Knights of Columbus Council 7014 decided Rockdale needed a big—really big—meeting place. They went to work. Lots of work. Ground was broken on the 14,500-square-foot facility in May. By year’s end Rockdale pretty much saw its big meeting place completed and has it ever been used for the past 39 years. The KC Hall has been where we’ve laughed, played and sometimes cried. It’s hosted Chamber of Commerce Banquets—a memorable one with comedian Jerry Clower drew close to 1,000 people—weddings, cowboy balls, exhibits, Mayfests and Fall Fests. And yes, funerals. Big ones. Building a place like this isn’t the whole story. The hall has to be maintained and for the past four decades the KCs have done just that. The hall is as much a showpiece now as it was in the Carter Administration. There’s no way to count the people who have filed through the KC Hall’s doors over those past 39 years, but it would be hard to find a place in our town that’s hosted more outside of schools and churches. Next time you see a KC member you might want to thank them. Anyone could have looked at Rockdale in 1979 and said “boy do we need a big meeting place.” The KCs certainly did. Then they did something about it.—M.B.