Annual Labor Day Celebration

The Official Kentucky Labor Day Parade and picnic, barbecue, live music, political stump speakers, arts and crafts, flea market, live music, & political speakers. Western Kentucky Labor Day Committee will also have flea market and yard sale at Carson Park, Joe Clifton at 28th & Madison St., 7a.m. to 7p.m. It's great to see people come out for the parade, to know there is some sentiment that's pro-labor in WKY. Booths are free. For more information, call 270.554.1627.

Know The History of Paducah Labor Day celebration

2009 W.C. Young Award for Paducah’s Labor Day program
Frances Willey seldom misses a chance to recruit volunteer workers for Paducah’s Labor Day program.
“We need your help,” she told the crowd that came to see her receive the 2009 W.C. Young Award. “We’re not getting any younger.”

At age 85, Willey, who lives in Lone Oak, a Paducah suburb, is one of the oldest recipients of the Young Award, the Western Kentucky Area Council’s highest honor. It is named for the late W.C. Young, a national labor and civil rights leader from Paducah, an historic city where the Ohio and Tennessee rivers converge.

“’Miss Frances’ is the boss of Labor Day,” said Steelworker Jeff Wiggins, council president. “I just have the title.”

Willey, who was in the old Food Handlers Union, earned the award mainly for her work on the Western Kentucky Labor Day Committee, a non-profit, all-volunteer group that puts on the city’s annual Labor Day parade and other holiday weekend festivities. The Paducah program is one of the oldest and largest Labor Day observances in Kentucky.
Wiggins is the Labor Day Committee president. Willey is treasurer. “I am glad to welcome ‘Miss Frances’ to my special fraternity,’ he said.

Wiggins meant past Young award winners. Photos and brief biographical sketches of each of them, starting with Young in 1994, decorate a wall at the council hall in Paducah. “Every time I kind of get down and want to give up, I look at all these people on the wall and I get going again.

“‘Miss Frances’ is a special person to me. I can’t think of anybody more deserving of this award than ‘Miss Frances.’”

Ref.: AFL-CIO, KY American Federation of Labor - America's Union Movement - KY State)