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By Angela Cutrer
Star correspondent

Join other enthusiasts Sunday, Aug. 27, at the Covered Bridge Park for the annual Pokemon in the Park event. The 2-5 p.m. Pokemon GO get-together will include several different activities planned to evoke the love of the game and its characters.

The event is cosponsored by the Carter County Drug Prevention Coalition, the Elizabethton/Carter County Public Library and Northeast Community Credit Union. Food trucks will be on site serving all afternoon. The augmented reality mobile game, which was released by developer Niantic and publisher The Pokémon Company in 2016, uses GPS and augmented reality to allow players to hunt down and capture Pokémon, virtual creatures displayed in the real world on a user’s phone. Players use GPS to located, capture, train and battle the virtual creatures that seem to appear in the player’s real-world location.
One of the things that makes downtown Elizabethton a great place to play is the fact that many Pokéstops are located in a close proximity in the downtown area. Pokéstop are locations in the game that a player must visit to get items to help them play the game. Many Pokéstops are historical places, such as the Covered Bridge. “We find many people enjoy battling each other on their phones or tablets,” Elizabethton Parks and Recreation’s Derrick Vines said. “This is a nationwide event and we are happy to have such a fun event in Elizabethton.”

The Sunday event will include on-site food trucks, trivia and competitions for prizes, with a mobile charging station and event WiFi provided by T-Mobile. Participants will be able to team up with other trainers to find lures that are set all day within numerous Gyms (battle locations for team-based “king-of-the-hill” type matches) and Pokestops (areas where wild and – sometimes rare Pokemon – can be lured) located within the park.

Routes are created by trainers all over the world and the Pokemon site can help guide members of the Pokemon GO community through chartered courses of favorite or new sites globally, or to find local trainers.