All Boyle County residents are invited to help welcome a group of Irish visitors to Danville at 4:45 p.m. on Friday, July 12. The “Welcome to Kentucky” reception will take place in the reading room of the Danville-Boyle County Public Library, honoring 16 Irish and Danville high school students and their four chaperones participating in the June 30–July 17 Sister Cities high-school exchange — the third in the past four years.

The reception will begin with a musical introduction by Travis Kern and welcoming remarks from Danville Mayor J.H. Atkins and Boyle County Judge-Executive Trille Bottom. Following the opening, the 16 students will narrate a slide show featuring sites from both Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, and Danville.

This year’s exchange students from Boyle County High School and Danville High School are Lia Da Costa, Maddie Fields, Alex Finke, Adeline Germann, Ellen Gnann, Anders Petkus, Iris Spears, and Maya Wade. Chaperones Logan and Lela Germann will accompany the students as they spend a week with their exchange partners’ families in Carrickfergus. The Irish students will arrive in Danville on July 10 to stay with their Danville partners and tour local and regional attractions, including SomerSplash and Mammoth Cave.

The Danville Sister Cities Commission will also host an open meeting for interested individuals and families at 6:45 p.m. on Tuesday, September 2, in the conference room of the Danville Public Library. The meeting will focus on continuing the Sister Cities connection between Danville and Carrickfergus.

Since Danville was officially “twinned” with Carrickfergus in 2007, more than 500 Danville residents have visited Ireland through six Sister Cities-sponsored group trips, various exchanges, and local sports team visits. Sister Cities International was established during the Cold War by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to promote what he called “citizen diplomacy.”