City to hold family event

ZACHARY — The city will have a free “family fun day” on Aug. 17 to celebrate a national magazine’s inclusion of Zachary in its annual list of 10 best places for families to live.

Family Circle magazine features the list in its August edition, now on newsstands.

Mayor David Amrhein said the event, which will be an evening affair, will be held at the Zachary Youth Park on Mount Pleasant Road.

Free food, inflatable slides and other play stations for children and other activities are being planned, Amrhein said at a news conference Monday.

The mayor said the city also will attempt to schedule activities such as canoe races at the BREC park that adjoins Zachary’s municipal park.

The event will be similar to the celebrations the Zachary school system has had in recent years to celebrate its first-place state accountability ranking, only bigger, said Adonica Duggan, a spokeswoman for Zachary schools.

Amrhein presented a plaque Monday to the Zachary couple whose family is featured in the magazine article, Nick and Jennifer Carr.

“What makes Zachary unique and different? The people. The people here truly care,” Amrhein said.

The mayor also said he wants the city to be as good as the school system while school Superintendent Warren Drake said Zachary schools are good because of “the families we have here.”

Randy Olson, who heads a Chamber of Commerce economic development effort, said attracting new businesses and industry is a slow process, “but a good school system makes it easier.”

Zachary was chosen from an initial list of 3,335 cities and towns with populations between 11,000 and 150,000, a news release from the magazine says.

The “family-friendly criteria” on which the winners were chosen included affordable homes, quality schools, access to health care, green space, low crime rate and financial stability, the release says.