In August of 2019, the Hopkins County Extension office had a ribbon cutting on the new Danny Payton Educational Center and Farmers Market. Around 200 community members came to honor the life of Danny Payton and to see the new market in person. In a matter of months, the excitement for the market season would shift to panic as COVID-19 became present in the U.S.A.

For a full year programs with Hopkins County Extension were forced to either halt or be transitioned to an online format. The same trends happened at the schools. One of the many things that youth lost out on this time was their end of school dances.

Through a long 2020 of wearing masks, social distancing, and temperature checks Hopkins County started to see the numbers of COVID-19 decrease. The county went from being a RED zone county to ORANGE, to being right on the line for YELLOW. As numbers decreased the desire to hold proms and graduation dances went up. However there was still a problem, the Health Department still felt it unsafe for a dance to be held inside.

With the guidance of the Health Department local schools attained permission to use the Danny Payton Educational Center and Famers Market as a venue to allow youth to have the experience that, unfortunately, the class ad head of them missed out on.  Through this partnership we have been able to give a little piece of normalcy back to over 500 youth. The Market was never made for dances. Extension and Schools were not made for worldwide pandemics. But as a community, we were able to serve the youth of Hopkins County.