NORTH YARMOUTH – Heather Gunn of Freeport has been playing in the North Yarmouth Community Band since she was a student at Yarmouth Middle School in the mid-1990s, and she’s looking forward to the band’s signature event – Friday night’s Yarmouth Clam Festival Parade.

Continuity is important, Gunn says. In fact, participation in the Community Band soon will become a family tradition.

“I hope it keeps on going for a long time,” Gunn said last Friday. “I’m hoping my son will join one time. That’s how these types of organizations continue.”

Her son, Gabriel Bean, is 10.

“He’s starting music classes this year at Mast Landing School,” Gunn said. “He’s already expressed an interest to play alongside mom.”

Gunn will play flute in the parade, which begins on Main Street at 6:30 p.m., with streets closing at 5:30. The Clam Festival Parade will feature more than 130 floats, marching bands, antique cars and entertainers, and the North Yarmouth Community Band is a parade staple. It’s one event in the full schedule of events happening during the 49th clam festival, which runs through Sunday.

Gunn said that the band’s flutes, clarinets, trumpets, saxophones, tubas and drums will fill the summer night with traditional marches such as “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” along with a state favorite, “The Maine Stein Song.” As the band has become older, she said, it’s not so much a marching band anymore. Most members play their instruments on a float – but not all.

“Our tuba player is fantastic,” Gunn said. “He kind of takes the lead. He marches beside the float.”

Gunn fondly recalls that when she was in middle school, Community Band members took the time to work with her and other students interested in music.

“I started out carrying the banner and holding the flags,” she said. “I played the drums before I learned how to play the flute.”

People attending Friday night’s parade can look forward to hearing “The Thunderer,” another John Philip Sousa march.

“It allows our trumpets to kind of take the lead,” Gunn said. “We have some awesome powerful trumpets.”

Gunn said that the Community Band doesn’t hold regular practices anymore, as they did at the North Yarmouth Grange Hall before it burned. But the band is still there for the big events, such as the Clam Festival Parade and a tree lighting at Christmas.

To Gunn, the North Yarmouth Community Band is about connections.

“I enjoy it,” she said. “It’s something that keeps me connected to the music, which I love. And it keeps me connected to the members of the band.”

Mary Thorp, organizer of the band, recalls those days when Gunn was marching along as a young teenager.

“I also had her in Girl Scouts,” Thorp said. “One of her best friends played clarinet.”

Thorp said that the band has 20-30 members, depending on who is around and available.

“If the college musicians are home,” Thorp said, “they’ll pitch in. We have some very talented musicians.”

George Warchol, who now lives in Portland, organized what then was called the North Yarmouth Community Town Band for the nation’s Bicentennial. A school principal donated some money and some drums, and Warchol put together 35 members for that big parade in 1976.

“We had red suspenders, jeans and straw hats,” he said.

The band might not be as active now, but it’s still a time-honored part of the clam festival.

“Kids go off to college, so you have to recruit,” said Warchol, 77. “When we started, we marched about every week in town functions. We used to have competition between the old Freeport alumni band and our band.”

Warchol, who recently had back surgery, doesn’t think he’ll be able to play the sax in Friday’s parade. But the band’s in good hands, he said.

“Mary’s doing a very good job,” Warchol said.

ROAD CLOSURES

The 49th annual Yarmouth Clam Festival runs Friday, July 18-Sunday, July 20. Opening ceremonies are Friday at 10 a.m. at Memorial Green. The parade begins at 6:30 p.m. on Main Street. For the full Yarmouth Clam Festival schedule, see www.clamfestival.com.

Wednesday and Thursday, July 16-17

Carnival, 6-10:30 p.m., School Street

Friday, July 18

Parade, 5:30-7:30 p.m., Main, West Elm, Portland, and McCarthy streets; noon-11:30 p.m., School Street

Saturday, July 19

School Street, 6:30 a.m.-11:30 p.m.

Kid’s Fun Run and Pat’s Pizza 5 Mile Classic, 6:30-9 a.m., Main, East Elm, Bridge streets

Firefighter’s Muster, 12:30-3:30 p.m., Main between York and School streets

Fireworks, 8:30-9:45p.m., Main between York and School streets

Sunday, July 20

School Street, 6:30 a.m.-11:30 p.m.

Bike Races, 8:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Main Street is closed; no traffic allowed down East Elm Street from Main Street. The rest of the race course is limited to direction of travel of race

The North Yarmouth Community Band will be ready to roll Friday night for the Yarmouth Clam Festival Parade.