Authorities Complete Investigation Into Okra Strut

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IRMO, S.C. (WOLO)–Authorities have now completed an investigation into the finances of the annual Okra Strut. The Okra Strut has been an Irmo tradition for more than 4 decades, but Mayor Hardy King says the festival’s financial deficits in recent years have made it almost impossible to sustain. “Two years ago it lost about $20,000, a year ago it lost about $30,000 and last year it lost about $50,000How can someone over spend $50,000? So I started looking through the stuff,” says King. When reviewing paperwork Mayor King found the numbers didn’t add up. At his request the Richland County Sheriff’s Department investigated the festival’s finances. While they didn’t find any evidence of criminal wrongdoing, what they did find was mismanagement and sloppy book keeping. According to King, “Whether there’s criminal wrong doing or sloppy book keeping the fact is that we lost $12,000 that we over paid to vendors and we evidently gave $12,000 of comp tickets away $24000 just like that mysteriously wasted.” Here in Irmo Mayor King is hopeful that a new ticketing technique will turn the Okra Strut from a money pit to a money maker. But, ticketing isn’t the only thing different about this year’s strut, the mayor says they’ve done a complete overhaul of how the festival is run. According to King,”We’re going to make sure it makes money this year, we’re gonna make sure money doesn’t get spent foolishly. We changed a lot of our ordinances to clarify things that were always in question.” The Mayor says he’s confident that these changes will make the upcoming Okra Strut enjoyable and profitable. “They’ve always said it’s not about making money but I think you can have just as good a festival making $5,000 as you can making $50,000. In fact I think it’s the opposite. I think you can have a better festival making $5,000 than you do losing $50,000,” says King.