Local residents fete Sister City group

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

A delegation from Sister City, Sumoto, Japan, was welcomed to Van Wert on Thursday. The delegation, comprised of eight students ages 16-17 (six girls and two boys) and six adult chaperones, was driven to the Comfort Inn, where a group of local residents greeted them and Mayor Don Farmer presented each with a gift package that included polo shirts with Van Wert and Sumoto engraved on them.

The delegation had a chance to get a bite to eat and then took off for the Niswonger Performing Arts Center of Northwest Ohio, where the Sumoto group was given a tour of the facility by Director Paul Hoverman. Delegation members took plenty of photos of the facility and the Japanese students also had fun with a microphone while on the NPAC stage.

The students then had the chance to spend some quality time with their host families, while the adult chaperones had dinner later at Willow Bend Country Club with a number of city and county officials and business people.

Prior to the dinner, local officials and delegation members had the chance to exchange business cards, an important tradition in Japan.

Prior to the dinner Mayor Farmer also presented a jacket made especially for the occasion by Van Wert company Universal Lettering to Sumoto’s mayor, Michihiro Takeuchi. The jacket, made in Sumoto city colors of teal and white, had the name of the mayor on it, as well as the names of both cities on the back.

The mayor praised the relationship between Sumoto and Van Wert, noting that all of Van Wert County is involved in the Sister City relationship with the Lima-sized Japanese city.

We are very pleased, not only all the people sitting here at the table, but as well as our community members, to be the sister city of Sumoto City,” the mayor said.

“Even though we have different traditions and customs, and we speak a different language, I think in here (pointing to his heart) we are all pursuing the same thing as individuals of this world that we live in today,” he added.

Mayor Farmer also said he hoped that sometime in the next few years, he would get the chance to visit Sumoto.

The delegation has a full day ahead of it, today, starting with a tour of Central Insurance Companies and its fire museum, followed by a tour of the Courthouse, Brumback Library, the Van Wert Fire Department, and then off to an afternoon at the YMCA’s Camp Clay facility, including some time spent swimming on Lake Rotary.

The delegation will have dinner at the Black Swamp Bistro and also put in an appearance at the Rhonda Vincent & the Rage concert in Fountain Park this evening, where delegation members will do a little performing themselves.

On Saturday, the group will tour the Children’s Garden in Smiley Park, take a short tour of First United Methodist Church, including some organ music by Gloria Wendel, and have a going-away party Saturday evening at the home of Peter and Anita VandenBerg’s home.

The delegation will leave Van Wert on Sunday morning.