2011 Genoa Cowboy Poetry is Mother's Day weekend

The second Genoa Cowboy Music & Poetry Festival will be May 5-8, 2011, Mother's Day weekend.

Genoa Town Board members tentatively approved an agreement with the Carson Valley Arts Council on Tuesday night establishing a date.

The event will be a week later than last year's in order to coordinate entertainment contracts with the Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival, which is the weekend before.

The arts council board of directors was scheduled to discuss the agreement on Thursday night, according to President Brian Fitzgerald.

Town board members modified the structure of the event by lopping off a board liaison committee that would work to coordinate the Genoa Town Board and the Carson Valley Arts Council boards.

There will be some other changes in the operation from last year, including establishment of a steering committee chair, a vice chair, and that Genoa will oversee and manage the festival's finances.

Last year, Genoa Town Manager Sheryl Gonzales and Arts Council Executive Director Theresa Chipp served as co-chairwomen of the event.

In order to streamline decision making, a single chair is proposed to shepherd the event. Genoa resident and former town board member Sue Knight has been proposed for the position.

Town board members also worked on a proposed budget for next year's event, showing a potential profit of nearly double last year's $9,414.

Board member Dave Whitgob asked that the budget not be too constricted.

"I've got this feeling that we're going to knock it out of the park," he said. "I think we're going to do extremely well, so I don't want to be too cautious."

The town board put $1,200 back into the budget for a volunteer appreciation event.

Whitgob also questioned the reduction in the marketing budget.

Gonzales said most of the people who came to the festival were from Western Nevada. She said the festival had advertisements in larger high-end publications, but could only afford small advertisements.