Longview news diary and sporting events
Longview is actually a city spread between Harrison County and Gregg County in Texas. This city is considered to be the commercial hub with the Longview Metropolitan Statistical Area and is one of its principle cities. With a population of around 77,000 people, Longview features a majority population led by Whites, Hispanics, Native Americans, African Americans, Pacific Islanders and Asians respectively.
The Longview sports scene is fairly different and unconventional. Aside from the regular collegiate sports of football, volleyball, Baseball, golf, softball, soccer as well as other varsity games, they host a number of yearly events that vary from boat races, balloon races, motorcycle rallies, athletic events. All these events take place through the year and celebrate some facet of sports coupled with their culture.
From the month of January the East Texas Boat, RV and Camping Expo takes place. This 3 day event is held on the last week of January each year. The building blocks of the event was laid by the owners of Longview Marines, Gene Brady and Dale Clark and has been active since 1982. This expo brings RVs, yachts, boats and motorcycles, ATVs from all of across East Texas in one location drawing almost over 10,000 attendees each year.
Yet another significant attraction in this area would be the Annual Memorial Day Motorcycle rally. This rally brings individual bikers and motorcycle riders and such clubs coming from all over Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana. This event began in 2006 and has been an important attraction in this region. The event includes numerous bike games, a bikers show, music and parades as well as the big attraction called the Teresi Dyno-Drag. During this interactive event, bikers test their abilities in racing to see how fast they can really go in a quarter mile stretch.
Probably the most interesting festivals that take place in Longview would be the Alley Fest which is held in the start of summer. This fest began in 1978 and hosts an art show, a music festival, a food contest and a marathon run that is a 1 mile, 5K and 10K course. The latest introduction to the fest has been the Kids Marathon run where children between 5 to 12 participate in a 25.2 miles run.
The most popular among every one of these could be the Great Texas Balloon race that is held in the month of July every year at the East Texas Regional Airport. This event is regarded as the “longest running hot-air balloon race in Texas”. This race began in 1978 over the launch of the Longview Mall as a giant celebration. It continued thereafter and has evolved into a competitive event of world class standards. This event is considered to draw in world class hot air balloon pilots from all across the world and consists of balloon fights and balloon glows. An added attraction of this event is always to observe how these balloons get inflated and operated. This is an event that is held in association with the North American Balloon Association and invites eighty special sport balloons.
The Longview News Journal is the major newspaper publication in this area and dates back to 187. This publication carries all the local news, sports and community information.