PANAMA — Plans are already being set for the upcoming Memorial Day event in the village of Panama for this year.

Typically, as a part of the event on Memorial Day, which is May 27 this year, the village has a speaker that gives a short speech during the day’s festivities. This person can range from a variety of people, and this year the board is hoping to be able to get County Legislator Travis Heiser.

At the latest board meeting, Mayor William Schneider said Heiser is still figuring out whether or not he will be around for Memorial Day. A back up plan could include the new pastor for the Panama Methodist Church who is set to come sometime in April.

“Even if we do have a new pastor by then, it’s mean to ask him or her,” Village Trustee Kim Davis said.

Another potential speaker could be one of the pastors at the Baptist church. Schneider said in the past all of the local ministers used to be involved in the event in some way, so if the new Methodist minister does not want to be the speaker, they may be involved in the day somehow if the church has someone in place by then.

“The way it used to be is every church participated,” Schneider said. “So like, one of the prayers the Catholic priest would do it, one of the prayers the Methodist minister. There used to be three, the opening prayer, the closing prayer, and one in the middle. We used to ask each church leader to do that, and that was fine.”

These days, Schneider said the village is in different times following a “shake up” at the Baptist church and the minister situation at the Methodist. The board also discussed if the current Catholic priest may be interested in participating this year in any way. Schneider said he would reach out to someone at the Catholic church to gauge interest, and Davis will reach out to Pastor Andy Cook at the Baptist church.

Everything else is pretty much set for Memorial Day for the village besides what the board wants to hand out this year. Past years, flags have been handed out but people would drop them. Another year the board handed out bracelets. The board is looking to hand out something besides the candy that is already handed out during the parade.

“They get candy,” Davis said. “I like doing something other than candy.”

The board planned to discuss this more at the next meeting.