The 24th year for a local bank’s customer appreciation and Farmers’ Week celebration posed to be it’s biggest yet, with over 400 people attending.

Wilson and Muir Bank, located on South Main Street in Leitchfield, has continued to show support for farmers in the community by hosting a hamburger lunch at the location.

The appreciation lunch takes place every year, the day before Thanksgiving Day. The Cattlemen’s Association has partnered with WMB for the past several years.

WMB Big Clifty Branch Assistant Vice President Bobby Joe Hatfield said people do not realize how important agriculture is to Grayson County.

“Most of our customer base at the Big Clifty branch are farmers,” Hatfield explained. “That is why we continue to feel that it is appropriate to salute our big agriculture county.”

The celebration has grown quite a bit, since the idea first became a reality.

“At that time we had the event in the lobby of the Leitchfield bank,” Hatfield reflected. “Then years later we got the cattlemen involved. That is when it spring-boarded into larger numbers. Before we would dress in farm clothes and serve cookies. That just goes to show how much we have grown.”

Hatfield said that bank representatives would continue to host the event. He also noted that this county rates as one of the top 20 counties in the state for dairy production.

“There used to be over 100 dairy farms just a few years ago,” Hatfield mentioned. “Now we are down to less than 30. There are just not as many mom and pop shops out there as they used to be though.”

According to the latest agriculture statistics, there are 1,650 farms in the county.

Over 40 million generated products are sold every year.