BOWDOINHAM
After the town brought the once-traditional summer chicken barbecue back for the town’s 250th celebration in 2012, many wondered if it would stick around.
Indeed the 2013 Bowdoinham Chicken BBQ is in full-scale planning mode, expected to feature townwide activities in addition to the barbecue Saturday, June 22 at the Bowdoinham Community School from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
The chicken barbecues started in Bowdoinham in the early 1950s and were an annual event to coincide with Independence Day until 1987, when the September celebration in town took its place. Last year, the town celebrated its 250th birthday and brought back the barbecue.
The menu this year will include barbecued chicken, cole slaw or local green salad, baked beans, chips, drinks and a brownie. In addition, the Historical Society will offer strawberry shortcake for dessert. Tickets are $10 for a regular meal (half a chicken), or $6 for a small meal (a quarter of a chicken). Tickets are available in advance at the town office and the Bowdoinham Country Store and at the event itself.
The barbecue is sponsored by the Bowdoinham Parents Group — parents of Bowdoinham Community School children — and all proceeds from will benefit the school and its programs.
Following the barbecue, a Chicken Dance will be held at the school, and from 2 to 4 p.m. an old-time acoustic music show can be find on the grassy “amphitheater” behind the tennis court.
The afternoon will showcase the talent of various Bowdoinham musicians, from the singing Sewall Family to the fiddle tunes of Steamboat Gypsy and a special appearance by a band of local students; of fiddler Ellen Gawler, a winner of Bowdoinham’s original Fiddle Contest at the 1975 Bowdoinham barbecue. Admission to the show is by donation and half the proceeds will go to benefit the school.
Also beginning at 2 p.m., a pickup baseball game will be held at the school diamond. The fifth-grade class will sell snacks and lemonade for both the game and the music show to raise funds for their class trip fund.
At 4 p.m. the action will shift to the Town Landing Restaurant’s “Cruise-in” for antique cars, with live music by the Blues Buzzards, followed at 6:30 p.m. by the FHA Red, White and Blue Festival music show at the Mailly Waterfront Park featuring the duo Cilantro and Earl Bigelow and his students.
The day will close with a gala fireworks display, courtesy of FHC, at the waterfront beginning at 9:30 p.m.
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