Bright Nights Will Be a Bright Spot in a Trying Year
Judy Matt says the Spirit of Springfield (SOS) exists for one reason — to entertain residents across the region and create some memories. It hasn’t been able to do any of that to this point in 2020, obviously, and Matt, the long-time executive director of the nonprofit agency, has been frustrated and disappointed by this reality. Annual events such as the pancake breakfast (long heralded as the world’s largest), the Fourth of July fireworks, and the Big Balloon Parade have been wiped off the calendar due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and there remains uncertainty about whether any of those can be staged in 2021.