The 2025 Bell Tower Festival “Saddle Up” in Jefferson is in the books. 

Friday night, during the opening ceremonies, this year’s Tower of Fame Awardee was the 1961 Jefferson High School graduate, Michael Brady. Best known for his work on helping to improve today’s products with 3M, including Post Its and Scotch Tape, being at higher quality for less cost and reducing environmental waste, the chemical engineer described what the Tower of Fame Award meant for him.

“Well, I’m at an age where I can pass it on to my children (and) my grandchildren. One of our daughters is married to a chemical engineer, one son is a chemical engineer in Owens-Illinois Glass and the other one is studying to become a chemical engineer at the University of Cincinnati. The older grandson just had about a year ago our first great-grandchild and he’s bought two books, ‘The ABC’s of Engineering,’ and the ‘ABCs of Organic Chemistry.’ So I don’t think that little guy has a chance but to continue the density of chemical engineers.”

On Saturday, there were close to 85 entries in the Jefferson Rotary Club Bell Tower Festival Parade in which four went home with hardware. Home State Bank was voted as the Best Thematic entry, the Best Non-Commercial float was Jefferson Public Library, Tom’s Taxi was voted the Best Commercial entry, and Greene County Community Foundation was honored as the Best Overall parade entry. 

Bell Tower Festival Committee Chair Philip Heisterkamp reflected on what he thought it takes for the Bell Tower Festival to continue to be as successful as it has been in the recent past.

“The team, and the effort, and the creativity is part of it. We have brainstorming sessions in the fall every year, trying to dream up how to make it better and just more complete, (and) having something for everybody. But the community has really accepted or welcomed the idea of a big, fun festival. There’s a demand for a big community celebration annually, so as long as we can provide fun and entertainment for people, we’ll try to keep it going as long as we can.”

Check out more pictures from the festival on the Raccoon Valley Radio Facebook page. For results from the contests and competitions, click here.