Over 100 people gathered Friday night at the Diamond Fire Company's Social Hall for Walnutport's first-ever "Meet Your Public Officials" town dance.

What began as a simple celebration in honor of newly elected Walnutport Mayor Wayne Weidner, who also serves as the fire company's president, grew into a somewhat impromptu party in which all local public officials and the general public were also invited to attend."We started discussing it and then we decided 'OK, let's have borough council here, let's have everybody here, the police chief, the firefighters and everyone ... and invite the town'," said Donald Redline, Diamond Fire Company and social hall manager.Indeed, it was only at the recent Feb. 6 borough council meeting that Weidner had announced the event, encouraging council members, along with police officers, borough workers, firefighters, etc. to also attend.And attend they did. In fact, out of the dozens of names read aloud during borough grant coordinator Michael Wentz's introduction of the public officials, only a handful were not present, mostly due to prior work commitments, he said.The donation-only event included food donated by fire company volunteers, plus music by DJ Eric Strohl, who is also the town's borough road foreman and code enforcement officer.Redline mentioned that an added benefit of the event was to offer the public a chance to see the social hall in a different table and dance floor configuration than its usual Saturday night bingo setup."We're looking to start doing banquets here, like wedding receptions (on Fridays and Sundays)," he said.But the biggest reason for the get-together, said Redline, was to give the public a chance to meet its public officials.Council President Matthew Newhard and Water Authority Chairman Ron Kuntz were among some of the officials present who considered the night a success."It's a good thing," said Kuntz, "and maybe when you have things like this, it'll urge people to get involved."In fact, Newhard said someone at the event had already approached them and expressed an interest in becoming a public official himself."It's very nice," said Newhard, who noted that as few as 100 people in the town may actually know he's the borough council president.In regard to the chance to meet the public officials firsthand, "It's kind of nice to be able to put a face to a name," added Jay Rubright, who was attending the event with his wife, Kim.Both said they would consider attending such an event again in the future.