The Mattoon Pride Bagelfest Tournament is at the Mattoon Round House Complex, July 21st through the 24th.  For more details, visit www.mattoonpride.com.

Dogs and their owners will be competing in categories like:
+ Owner Pet Look-a-Like
+ Best Bagel Dog
+ Best Dog Trick
+ Best Good Old Dog

If you want to participate, you should show up a little before 2PM to register your pet in the contest.

Remember, all dogs will need to be on a leash since this is a public area.

The Bagel Bow Wow is hosted by DeBuhr’s Feed and Seed with Mars Pet Care donating gift packages for each entry.

Stacy Root from Soggy Paws, Dr. Albin’s office, and Jim Sears from K-9 Estates will be the judges.

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Clyde’s Animal Clinic will be offering low-cost microchipping and a low-cost vaccination clinic at the Bagelfest Bow Wow Contest.

Quite often the gifts that God gives believers take on an added potency when simmered in the sauce of experience. Such is the case with Building 429, the talented pop/rock outfit that topped the charts in 2004 with “Glory Defined” and proceeded to build one of the Christian music community’s most impactful ministries.

Now after nearly a decade in the national spotlight, Building 429 has teamed with Provident Music Group for their fifth album, Listen To The Sound. “It really is the overflow of the life that we’ve lived over the last two or three years, especially this past year,” says lead vocalist Jason Roy. “I’m a worship pastor now and that has been a huge part of the lyrical content of this record. It’s about the lives that I’ve been involved with.  This really does come from a much more honest place.”

Drummer Michael Anderson agrees. “Individually we’re all on a different spiritual level than we’ve ever been,” he says. “We have great home churches now that we’re happily involved in.  Our family lives at home are better than they’ve ever been and our relationship as a band is light years above what it’s ever been. I think that really shows through with this new music.”

Blessed with one of the most distinctive voices in any genre of music, Jason overcame a turbulent childhood and found solace in the church and in music. He launched Building 429 determined to make a difference in the lives of others needing to hear the truth of the gospel. The band broke through with the powerful hit “Glory Defined,” which was named BMI’s Christian Song of the Year in 2005. That same year Building 429 was named New Artist of the Year at the Gospel Music Association’s Dove Awards and the band was also nominated in the Rock/Contemporary Album of the Year and Song of the Year categories.

In the past few years, Jason, Michael, guitarist Jesse Garcia and bassist Aaron Branch have toured heavily. They’ve hit the road with Casting Crowns, tobyMac and other acts as well as headlining several treks, including Food for the Hungry’s SummerFest 2009 and 2010 and Food for the Hungry WinterBlast 2010 and 2011. But even as they were touring the country and pouring into the lives of others, Jason and his wife Cortni found themselves becoming increasingly involved in their home church in Clarksville, TN.

Jason was on tour in New Mexico when he got a call saying their worship pastor was leaving and they needed Jason to fill in. He confesses he’d always been hesitant to lead worship, but didn’t want to say no. “So I went in and I led the Christmas service and it was awesome,” he says.  “I had a blast!  I was surrounded by people who desired to grow musically and spiritually. I felt like God did something with me there that he hadn’t done with me on the road in a while. I called up the pastor and said, ‘I think God has called me to do this.’”

Simply being obedient to God and serving his home church had a powerful impact on Jason and began shaping this new chapter in Building 429’s career. “I started doing life with people,” Jason says with a smile. “I’ve started plugging back into the church and I started getting fed again. When I became a leader of a worship group that’s 80 plus people, I started seeing that all the things that I learned on the road were actually able to elevate what we were doing at home in the church. What I did with the band fed what I did in church and now when we made this new record with Provident, what I did at the church—the life that I live there and the mentoring and the people that mentored me and the spiritual depth that has come from that—is now feeding the Building thing. I never saw that coming.”

Collectively the songs on Listen To The Sound acknowledge life’s struggles, but point to the hope, grace and love of God. “I think what this record does is it makes you take a look at your life and say ‘I’m connected to it because it’s the truth that I don’t tell anybody else about.  This is where I am,’” Jason says, acknowledging that the record is encouraging families struggling in this tough economy, people dealing with depression and other challenges. “This record keeps coming back to the point that this is not what we were made for, that this is not our home. It is hitting people in the midst of a struggle, but it’s doing it in this pop kind of thing that makes you smile while you listen to it.”

Songs like the title track, “War Zone,” “Where I Belong” and “You Save Me” are resonating strongly with people in the midst of trials, including Jason’s own father, who calls daily to tell his son how this new music is ministering to him. “I finished the record and I sent the songs to dad and he literally asked me, ‘did you write these songs about me?’ The answer to that question was ‘no, not intentionally,’” Jason says.  “But it also proves to me that all of us struggle in a lot of ways with the same stuff. We really do.  It’s how you choose to handle the situation that you are in that defines who you are.”

Splitting production duties between co-producers Jason Ingram and Rusty Varenkamp, and Rob Hawkins, Building 429 has crafted a record that is sonically vibrant and lyrically substantive. Jason wrote or co-wrote nine of the ten tracks. “War Zone” is the only outside cut, but ended up being the song that would pull the album’s theme together. “When I heard ‘War Zone,’ I was like ‘I would say that,’” Jason proclaims. “It did something for me,” he says. “It empowered me to realize, ‘This is a war zone! My hands are tired. My faith is worn, but I run because I need you God.’ This album centers on the idea that nothing is as it seems. This life is not where we belong, or where we are going. So daily, we have to fight for our faith and our families, and ‘War Zone’ says it all.”

Michael Anderson cites “Made for You” as his favorite song on the album “just because of what it says.  We were all created to be living in community with our Lord, our savior Jesus Christ. That’s what it’s all about and besides that, it’s just a really fun track to play live. It’s just really cool to get to share that with people.”

“Listen to the Sound” is instantly memorable. “It was different than anything we had before on any other record,” notes Michael. “From my perspective the whole groove of it is totally different than anything we’ve done. When Jason first played me that one, it was probably the one that most surprised me.

Jason enlisted his worship team to sing on the album’s opening track “Made for You” and “Where I Belong.” He also recruited a very special guest to sing the duet “I’ll Be With You.” “I’m a fan,” Jason says of Fireflight’s frontwoman Dawn Michele. “I wrote this song with a second verse designed for a female vocal. I’ve always loved Dawn’s voice, not to mention that she is a natural born rock star.  It is a blessing to have her on the song.”

Recording the whole album was an enjoyable experience for the seasoned pop/rock outfit. “We’re just much more comfortable as a band, and it all starts with our spiritual walk,” says Michael. “We’re much more mature now. This was the most relaxed and the most fun we’ve had recording a record.  We all played on it and we were all in the studio pretty much the whole time while everybody was recording.  It was fun to be there and to be able to encourage each other. This is definitely a record that the band was most involved in every little part of it.”

Experienced, mature, and as dedicated as ever to sharing God’s truth, the members of Building 429 are excited about this new season in the band’s ministry. “This is where God has put me right now and I hate to quote my own song, but it really is about just ‘one foot in front of the other,’” Jason says with a smile, citing the uptempo anthem “One Foot.” “We just have to focus on this moment. It’s time for us to value every second that we have and use it all for the glory of God.”

Admission is free but you can reserve your tickets online at bagelfest2011.eventbrite.com, at the tourism office in Mattoon City Hall, 208 N. 19th, or over the phone at 217-258-6286.

The contest is free and open to the public however contestants must pre-register. Registration is limited to the first 101, newborn to 4 years old (girls and/or boys) children.

Registration is Saturday, June 11 at the Cross County Mall at 11am at Center Court. (Cross County Mall does unlock at 6am on Saturday for walkers, so if you want to wait in line for registration, you may do so at 6am.)

Child(ren) need not be present at registration on June 11th! However, you must present the child(ren) birth certificate(s) at time of registration.

This year’s theme for the baby contest is Beach Blanket. Children can be dressed in any type of summer outfit. Complete rules and regulations will be handed out at registration.

Age Requirements – newborn to 4 years old:

• Child must have been born on or before June 10, 2011, you must bring the birth certificate(s) to registration.
• Child cannot turn 5 ON or BEFORE July 20, 2011 (date of the contest), you must bring the birth certificate(s) to registration.

Babies will be split by gender and in to the following age groups based on their age at time of contest (July 20, 2011):

Newborn to 1
1 to 2
2 to 3
3 to 4

Travis Tritt was one of the leading new country singers of the early ’90s, holding his own against Garth Brooks, Clint Black, and Alan Jackson. He was the only one not to wear a hat and the only one to dip into bluesy Southern rock. Consequently, he developed a gutsy, outlaw image that distinguished him from the pack. Throughout the early ’90s, he had a string of platinum albums and Top Ten singles, including three number one hits.

Tritt fell in love with music as a child, teaching himself how to play guitar when he was eight and beginning to write songs when he was 14. Travis was determined to have a musical career, but his parents didn’t encourage him to follow his instincts. His mother didn’t mind that he wanted to perform, but she wanted him to sing gospel; his father was afraid there was no money in singing. When he was 18, he tried to settle down, work, and have a family but was unsuccessful — he was married and divorced twice before he was 22. He continued to play music while working various jobs, including one at an air-conditioning company. The company’s vice president was a guitarist who gave up hopes of a musical career and urged Tritt to follow his dreams. Tritt quit his job and began pursuing a career full-time.

In 1982, Tritt began his pursuit by recording a demo tape at a private studio which was owned by Danny Davenport, who happened to be an executive at Warner Brothers. Davenport heard the vocalist’s songs and was impressed, deciding to take Tritt under his wing. For the next several years, the pair recorded demo tapes while Tritt played the honky tonk circuit. The singer was developing a distinctive sound, adding elements of country-rock and Southern rock to his honky tonk.

Partway through in 1989, Warner Brothers’ Nashville division signed Tritt, and his debut album, Country Club, appeared in the stores in the spring 1990. It was preceded by the Top Ten hit, “Country Club.” Upon the release of his debut album, Tritt entered the first ranks of new country singers. His next two singles, “Help Me Hold On” and “I’m Gonna Be Somebody,” hit number one and two respectively. “Put Some Drive in Your Country,” which had a clear rock & roll influence, stalled at number four, since radio programmers were reluctant to feature such blatantly rock-derived music.

Tritt had a breakthrough success with his second album, 1991′s It’s All About to Change – went into multi-platinum territory.

T-r-o-u-b-l-e, Tritt’s third album, was released in 1992-it had the number one single, “Can I Trust You With My Heart,” and went gold. Tritt came back in 1994 with Ten Feet Tall & Bulletproof, which went platinum, spawned the number one single “Foolish Pride,” and marked his highest position, number 20, on the pop charts. His 1995 compilation Greatest Hits: From the Beginning went platinum within six months of its November release. Restless Kind was released in 1996, followed two years later by No More Looking Over My Shoulder; Down the Road I Go was issued in fall 2000. Live in Concert appeared in 2007 from Big Bang while later that same year Category 5 released a new studio effor from Tritt called The Storm produced by well known American Idol judge and musician Randy Jackson.

Travis recently wrapped production on the upcoming film “Fishers of Men” in which he portrayed the character Eddie Waters. The film will be released late 2011. He is currently traveling the country on his solo-acoustic tour and giving audiences and intimate experience playing his songs, and telling stories in a rare and intimate experience.

Purchase your tickets online at bagelfest2011.eventbrite.com, at the tourism office in Mattoon City Hall, 208 N. 19th, or over the phone at 217-258-6286.

The voice is straight-forward and powerful. The songs are down-to-earth portraits of real people from the American heartland. The sound is traditional, unapologetic country.

Craig Campbell is a proud reminder of one of country’s strongest creative periods, building on the early-‘90s legacy established by some of the genre’s most successful figures: Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Clint Black and Travis Tritt.

The Georgia-bred Campbell was introduced with a five-song EP that landed in the Top 20 on iTunes. His self-titled debut album expands on the central themes of his life—family, friends, purpose and self-determination—with a bundle of self-written songs, all delivered with the force and conviction of someone who’s lived every sentiment in every word.

“I have to believe every one of my songs,” Campbell says matter-of-factly.

It’s a simple premise learned through years of touring at the club level, writing songs in Nashville and playing the bars on Lower Broadway in Music City. Campbell honed his craft in bands backing Luke Bryan and Tracy Byrd, on stages where he covered Alabama and Lynyrd Skynyrd, and at an annual hometown talent contest where he won twice and eventually became the leader of the house band for other contestants.

Campbell’s abilities stood out, as Nashville decision-makers discovered. In fact, he became the subject of a moderate competition. He received an offer from one of Nashville’s major labels, but he was more intrigued by interest from songwriter-producer Keith Stegall—known for his work with Alan Jackson and Zac Brown Band. Introduced to Stegall through radio promotion executive Michael Powers, Campbell turned down the other offer to wait while Stegall and several other industry veterans developed Bigger Picture Group, an innovative artist-development company.

Once Bigger Picture was in place, Campbell headed into the studio to work on his first project, founded on his big, commanding voice and centrist-country songwriting. “When I Get It” puts a defiant spin on a tough economy, “I Bought It” revolves around sweet revenge and “My Little Cowboy” incorporates a multi-generational storyline and a Haggard-esque instrumental hook into a Southern-rock framework. “Fish” puts a bawdy spin on romance, but—in sensitive-daddy fashion, does so in a manner that’s safe for the kids to hear.

“Family Man,” set up by a sonic comma in its first reference—“It’s family, man”—brought Campbell quickly onto the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. Still, the singer and his associates plan to go way past one single or album.

“The one word Keith has used a lot with me is iconic,” Campbell notes. “He says, ‘We don’t want to do a one-song project, we’re gonna shoot for 20 years.’”

Campbell’s assault on a two-decade career was in development for years before he made the conscious decision to pursue it. He was born and raised in Lyons, Ga., a town of about 4,000 people half-way between Macon and Savannah, a geographical hot spot that’s produced such peers as Jason Aldean, Billy Currington and Lady Antebellum.

Campbell grew up one of five children in a blended family. His parents divorced when he was extremely young, leaving his oldest sister—11 years his elder—to tend to the siblings while his mom worked multiple jobs to keep food on the table. He saw his biological father every other weekend until his dad died, when Craig was 11 years old, leaving little impact on his son’s memory.

“The older I get,” Campbell says, “the more I realize didn’t know him.”

The man Campbell called dad married his mom when Craig was six. He provided structure, a sense of right and wrong, and a daily model of what an adult man could be.

“In all honesty,” Craig says, “my life began when my mama married my stepdad.”

The family studiously attended the Baptist church—twice on Sundays and again on Wednesday nights—which became an important training ground for Craig’s musical education. He played piano for the congregation from age 10 until he turned 18, and Campbell learned harmony from listening to his mom sing from the hymn book.

“I’d stand beside her and try to mimic what she was doing,” he recalls. “In a Baptist church, you have to learn how to sing harmony because the song was not always in your key, so you gotta find somewhere to go with it.”

The house was filled with the sound of gospel groups—the Cathedrals, the Inspirations, the Kingsmen, the McKameys—and the from-the-gut approach of those acts resonates in Campbell’s delivery today.

But he gravitated even more to country music, magnetized by the quality of performers during one of the genre’s golden radio eras. He’s drawn comparisons to Alan Jackson—understandable since they’re both Georgian singers with a similar range and accent. But it was Travis Tritt, embodied with a fierce vocal style similarly informed by gospel singers, who most influenced Campbell.

He put that influence to work at age 15 when his sister Lynn, nine years his senior, pushed him to enter the Jimmy Dean/True Value Country Showdown. She served as an unpaid manager and A&R person, enrolling him in the competition, helping him decide on his stagewear and picking out two then-current songs that would show off his skills well: Tritt’s “Foolish Pride” and John Michael Montgomery’s “Be My Baby Tonight.” Campbell finished first among the 22 contestants at Kerrigan’s bar, got his picture in the local paper—The Vidalia Advance—and was instantly hooked on performing.

“I wanted to be on stage for sure,” Campbell recalls. “The crowd response is what drove it. Nothin’ better than to hear somebody applaud.”

It gave him a vocational direction, though his sense of purpose was tested just months later when Lynn died from injuries in a car accident.

“It was rough,” he reflects. “We were pretty good buddies, you know, and she had a 6-year-old little girl, too, which was the worst part about it. I don’t think I cried up until we told her daughter her mommy wasn’t comin’ home.”

It took months for Craig to regain his footing emotionally—with the encouragement Lynn had planted in his psyche, he used music as a grounding mechanism. And he continued to enroll in the Showdown. He won one more year, and—after a two-year stint as a corrections officer in the Georgia State prison system—he put together Out Of The Blue, the house band at Kerrigan’s.

With assistance from the club owner, he made some connections with a couple of booking agents and the band started touring small venues five and six nights a week with the travel extending as far as Wyoming and Elko, Nevada. The band once drove itself the entire 1,800-mile trip from Florida to North Dakota, stopping only to change drivers or fill the tank. It was a grueling schedule, but it also gave Campbell first-hand knowledge of how to fill out a setlist and win over an audience.

“You can go anywhere and play Lynyrd Skynyrd, you can go anywhere and play Hank Williams Jr.,” he shrugs. “There’s certain songs—‘Friends In Low Places,’ ‘Dixieland Delight,’ ‘Sweet Home Alabama,’ ‘Margaritaville,’ ‘Brown Eyed Girl’—it don’t matter where you are. You’ll get a response.”

In 2002, one of his friends called from Nashville. The friend was getting divorced and wanted to know if Campbell would move up and share an apartment.

“Shoot, yeah,” Craig responded. “If you can get me a job, I’m there.”

In short order, Campbell had an interview for a maintenance position at the Belle Valley Apartments in the Bellevue neighborhood. Within a week, he’d moved all his belongings to Tennessee, where he was within reaching distance of a music career.

Campbell wasted no time. He ingrained himself in the club scene and picked up a gig when he met another musician at Douglas Corner, the same venue where Trisha Yearwood had once secured her first recording deal. When Campbell told the musician that he played piano, he got an offer to fill in on a Saturday night at The Stage, one of the largest clubs on historic Lower Broadway. Not only did Campbell accept the job, he aced it.

“Halfway through the gig, he asked me do I want the gig fulltime?” Campbell remembers. “I said, ‘Absolutely.’ So I started working five and six nights a week then. On top of my job. I was bankin’!”

He quickly became ingrained in the Nashville music community, meeting fellow Georgian Luke Bryan. Bryan, in turn, introduced Campbell to songwriter Jon Mabe (“The Climb”), who brought Craig in to sing on a demo session for his wife, songwriter Connie Harrington (“Girls Lie Too”). That led to a ton of work as Campbell became one of the in-demand singers on Nashville’s underground demo circuit.

Bryan, who hadn’t yet signed with Capitol Records, also advised Campbell to write his own songs. If he could sing and write, he’d be more valuable. And he’d have an identity of his own.

“At first it was a job,” Campbell admits. “I wasn’t used to it, but then I started writing songs that I thought were kind of cool and I’d play ‘em live and people would applaud, and then it started getting to where people were requestin’ ‘em. It takes on a completely different meaning whenever you can stand up and say, ‘Here’s a song I wrote.’ As opposed to, ‘Here’s a song I like.’”

In the middle of it all, Campbell started seeing a singer, Mindy Ellis, he’d known even before he moved to Nashville. There’d always been chemistry between them, but she was already seeing someone else. Months after she broke off a relationship, he got a call from Mindy while waiting at the Country Music Hall of Fame to audition for Nashville Star. She wanted to hang out; he couldn’t leave.

“She said, ‘Well, I have a van that has a TV and a VCR. I’ll just come to you and we’ll watch a movie.’ So she came down and we plugged in Face/Off, with John Travolta and Nicolas Cage, and we watched it. We’ve been together ever since.”

He started playing piano in her band, and that led to another valuable gig: One of her friends got him a job for 15 months touring with Tracy Byrd’s band, giving Campbell his first opportunity to play mid-sized venues.

During his tenure with Byrd, Campbell married Mindy and started a family, which now includes two daughters, Preslee and Kinni.

He eventually scored a weekly performance slot at The Stage, where his band consisted of musicians who also played with Big & Rich, Chris Young, Mark Chesnutt and Joe Diffie. One of the bartenders, Kim Trosdahl, talked Campbell up to her significant other, Bigger Picture Group’s Michael Powers, who was won over by the singer’s obvious skills.

Powers brought Keith Stegall down to the club in August 2008, and from there, it was simply a waiting game before Bigger Picture had everything in place to get Campbell recorded and bring him to a wider audience.

The company introduced him with the 2010 single “Family Man,” a song that incorporates the centerpiece of his life, the source of his emotional strength and the reason he wakes up in the morning.

Now his debut album blends Campbell’s masculine, no-nonsense vocal style with solid, salt-of-the-earth songs about America’s working class and a classic sense of wordplay. It’s a timeless sound, one that links him directly to Travis Tritt and Alan Jackson, who likewise built their style on such predecessors as George Jones and Hank Williams Jr.

“It’s traditional, back-to-basics, true country music,” Campbell says. “It’s what I am. I can’t be anything else.”

Purchase your tickets online at bagelfest2011.eventbrite.com, at the tourism office in Mattoon City Hall, 208 N. 19th, or over the phone at 217-258-6286.

Free Lender’s Bagels are served 8-10AM at the Demars Center in Peterson Park.

Juice and coffee will be available for purchase.

• Little Miss ages 5-8
• Pre-Teen ages 9 – 12
• Teen ages 13- 17

Miss Bagelfest 2010

All contestants are being judged on personality, pop question, confidence, and stage presence.  The teens have been very busy preparing a speech on influencial women. They will also start the judging at a tea party being held prior to the pageant.

The 3 queens will make appearances at all the main stage events, parade, carnival and various pageants, parades and festivals throughout
the year to promote Bagelfest.

2010 royalty will be passing the crown to the 2011 royalty! Visiting queens are welcome!