(STURGIS) – The 2024 Sturgis Fest Celebration officially began Tuesday evening with the Kick Off Dinner at the Sturges-Young Center For The Arts.

The 2024 Sturgis Citizens Of The Year, Doug VanMeter and Mary Kay Schultz, were honored during the event. They were presented with proclamations by State Representative Steven Carra and State Senator Johnathan Lindsey.

The theme for Sturgis Fest is Disney Days, and that was on full display during the evening as the guest speaker was Dr. Christopher Tremblay from Western Michigan University, who teaches a class on Walt Disney.

Tremblay shared with the audience the early days of Walt Disney, from his upbringing and the many jobs he had to his business failures as well. It was due to one of those failures, Tremblay says, that Disney came up with his most famous creation after starting Walt Disney Studios in 1923. ...... {LISTEN}.

Tremblay spoke about the many projects Disney was involved with outside of animation and his company. He was working on creating a ski resort when he died in 1966, and was also developing a utopian society called Epcot, which never came to be. That name was later used for the park in Orlando, Florida.