Sharing her snapshots is Tammy Schuey, the assistant general manager of the Butler Eagle, fifth from left, part of group from Butler County that served as tourism ambassadors during a trip to Germany. The group, shown on the roof of Wartburg Castle, were, from left, Judy Ferree, owner of the Saxonburg Hotel; Jack Cohen, president of the county tourism bureau; David Murray of Prospect; Kathy Allen of Armstrong Farms; Schuey; Julia Murray of Prospect; Fred Caesar, president of the Friends of Saxonburg Museum; and Janice Pakozdi-Luffy, controller of Bear Metallurgical.

A varied band of ambassadors spread the word about Butler County last month during a week's visit to Germany.

The group included Jack Cohen, the Butler County Tourism and Convention Bureau president; Tammy Schuey, assistant general manager of the Butler Eagle; Fred Caesar, president of the Friends of Saxonburg Museum and a board member for the Saxonburg Historical Restoration Commission; Janice Pakozdi-Luffy, controller of Bear Metallurgical in East Butler; David Murray and Julia Murray of Prospect; Andreas Beck and Melanie Beck, owners of Beyond Spots and Dots the bureau's ad agency; Kathy Allen of Armstrong Farms; and Judy Ferree, owner of the Saxonburg Hotel.

Schuey said, “We officially dubbed ourselves the Butler County Tourism Ambassador Club.”The group, put together by Cohen, took an eight-hour flight from Pittsburgh to Frankfurt Aug. 22 and then had three-hour bus trip to the city of Erfurt in the state of Thuringia in central Germany.During their trip the group traveled to Saxonburg's sister city, Muhlhausen, for the city's Kirmes parade.Schuey said, “He (Cohen) got the group together to participate in the parade. The whole reason we went there was for the parade in Muhlhausen.”Ferree said the Kirmes Parade came about because when in the past the town's 25 churches each had its own festival which the town mayor was obligated to attend.

She said a past mayor decided to put them all together in one festival of festivals to save time.Muhlhausen was chosen a decade ago by the county Tourism and Convention Bureau to be Saxonburg's sister city because it is the birthplace of John Augustus Roebling.Roebling was the immigrant civil engineer who invented wire rope used to build several bridges, including the Brooklyn Bridge, as well as the founder of Saxonburg.Cohen said, “The idea behind it was to let people know that we had come to see the beauty of their communities and it was their turn to come back to see the beauty of ours.”<i>See more photos and find out what else the 'Tourism Ambassador Club” did during their trip to Germany in the Butler Eagle.</i>

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The Kirmes parade in Muhlhausen, Germany, was visited by both a group from Butler County and Saxonburg Mayor Bill Gillespie last month. Muhlhausen is the sister city to Saxonburg, and Gillespie signed a 10-year extension of the sister city agreement. The Butler County group were there to get Germans to visit the county.

The skyline of the city of Erfurt is shown. Erfurt is the 1,270-year-old capital of the central German state of Thuringia.