Miles of Possibility Route 66 Conference Returns to Edwardsville with Robby Robinson and the Route 66 Band to Headline Entertainment

EDWARDSVILLE - The 2024 Miles of Possibility Route 66 Conference will return to the Wildey Theatre just off Route 66 in Edwardsville, where the very first Miles of Possibility was held in October 2015. This year's 9th annual conference will take place at the Wildey Theatre Thursday-Saturday, October 31-November 2 with additional activities on Sunday, November 3, at other locations. This year's conference carries the theme “Giants of Route 66.”

The keynote speaker is Joel Baker, founder of American Giants and the nation’s leading authority of – and advocate for – the identification, preservation, and restoration of the giant fiberglass statues known as “muffler men” produced in the 1960s by International Fiberglass Company, once located in Venice, California. “Muffler men” got their name from their advertising use at automotive shops. Baker has established an American Giants Museum in Atlanta, Illinois.

The slate of speakers includes: Casey Claypool, Executive Director of Illinois Route 66 Scenic Byway; Cory Jobe, President & CEO of Great Rivers & Routes Tourism Bureau; Susan Croce Kelly, author of “Cyrus Avery: Father of Route 66;” Judy DeMoisey and Mike Gassman, preservationists who saved the World's Largest Catsup Bottle; Debyjo Ericksen and Ron Romero, staff and founder of the Illinois Rock & Roll Museum on Route 66; Jim Hinckley, Route 66 author, historian, and tour guide; Bill Iseminger, career archaeologist at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site; Geoff Ladd, Co-Chair of Route 66 Monarch Flyway; Benjamin Lowder, expert on Buckminster Fuller and the Fuller Domes at Edwardsville and Carbondale; Rhys Martin, President of the Route 66 Association of Oklahoma; Mark Pierce, author of “When the Stars Came Out: The Story of the Mississippi River Festival;” Cindy Reinhardt, Edwardsville historian, author, and tour guide; Joe Sonderman, St. Louis radio personality and Route 66 author and collector; William Thomas, Chair of the Road Ahead Partnership; and Dave Tucker, Illinois coal mining historian and founder of the Illinois Coal Museum at

Gillespie.

Other activities will include: a trolley tour of Edwardsville's Route 66 and the historic cooperative village of Leclaire on Thursday, Oct. 31 (requires separate ticket); a special event at the newly-restored visitor center/museum the West End Service Station on Friday evening, Nov. 1; and an outdoor tour of Cahokia Mounds State

Historic Site in Collinsville on Sunday, Nov. 3, weather permitting. On Sunday afternoon, Madison County Historical Society's annual “Dining in History” event will be held at the Crystal Garden in Edwardsville, beginning with a social hour at 12:30 pm, followed by dinner and a presentation, “Route 66 in Illinois,” by Route 66 historians Joe Sonderman and Cheryl Eichar Jett (requires separate ticket).

Each year, the Miles of Possibility conference includes a musical event, and the organizers are thrilled to announce that the star-studded tour band Robby Robinson & the Route 66 Band will play a concert on Friday evening, November 1, at the Wildey as part of the ninth annual Miles of Possibility Route 66 Conference. Tickets are available at cityofedwardsville.com/769/WildeyTheatre

With two Illinois natives in the band (Robby Robinson – Litchfield; Sara Niemietz – Chicago), this concert will sell out fast.

Robinson, formerly of Litchfield, Illinois, is a 46-year veteran music director and keyboardist of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons and nationally-recognized Hammond organ virtuoso as part of the “Ham Fam” will play keyboards.

He has worked with timeless artists such as Liza Minelli, Tom Jones, the Beach Boys, and the Four Tops, and as a conductor has wielded the baton for major orchestras, including Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, and the London Symphony at the Royal Albert Hall. Robinson is a native of Litchfield,

Illinois, and has returned to his beloved hometown numerous times to produce and perform local benefit concerts.

On lead guitar will be Vince Martell, one of the original members of the iconic 1960s rock group Vanilla Fudge. The band broke up in 1970 and Martell went on to perform and record solo until Vanilla Fudge reformed in 2005 with all the original members. Vocals for the “Route 66 Band” will be handled by two young but seasoned entertainers: Sara Niemietz, Illinois native and dynamic rising vocal star of Postmodern Jukebox and Ozone Squeeze fame, and Travis Cloer, Broadway and Las Vegas star who performed 2,200 shows as Frankie Valli in the hit musical “Jersey Boys.”

With these musicians' unique backgrounds, the audience can expect to hear a mix of songs from the Frankie Valli and Vanilla Fudge bands plus plenty of Route 66-appropriate tunes including Robby and Sara's cool-and-campy arrangement of the ever-popular “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66,” which they recorded in 2022. Don't miss this dynamic show!

The Edwardsville show on November 1 is one of several venues TBA as part of an Illinois tour, inspired by their “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66” recording and the opportunity to perform on Illinois Route 66 in conjunction with the Miles of Possibility Route 66 Conference for the second year (they kicked off the 2023 Miles of Possibility with a concert in Bloomington-Normal in October 2023).

The 2024 conference is made possible by the City of Edwardsville and Great Rivers & Routes Tourism Bureau, with additional support from

Illinois Route 66 Scenic Byway, McLean County Museum of History, Ryburn Place at Sprague Super Service, and Visit Springfield Tourism

Bureau.

In between the 2015 and 2024 conferences, Miles of Possibility has been hosted by Bloomington-Normal, Carlinville, Joliet, and Pontiac. The 2025 conference will take place in Joliet at the Illinois Rock & Roll Museum on Route 66, and the 2026 Route 66 Centennial Miles of Possibility will be hosted by Springfield. Miles of Possibility is the only annual, ongoing conference dedicated solely to Route 66!

Registration for the conference sessions (Thursday-Saturday), the Edwardsville-Leclaire trolley tour (Thursday), and the Madison County Historical Society's annual “Dining in History” (Sunday) is open at route66milesof possibility.com. For updates, visit facebook.com/ Route66MilesOfPossibility. Register now to

secure your place in the 2024 version of the only annual, ongoing conference event dedicated to Route 66!

Cheryl Eichar-Jett is the author of numerous books and articles about Route 66. Find her at route66chick.com and cheryleichar jett.com.