Norway Summer Festival kicks off Friday
By Jim Smedley
Staff Writer

NORWAY – Norway Summer Festival presents its most ambitious schedule ever with events starting Friday and ending Sunday night.

And there’s tons of stuff going on.

There’s music, food, a wider variety of artisans presenting their work and activities for kids.

There’s plenty of new events and performers and many of the old favorites remain.

Kids will still be able to exhibit their artistic prowess at the sidewalk chalk show Friday in front of Norway Saving Bank and adults can visit the farmer’s market in Pike’s parking lot and then later go to the Oxford County Fair lobster feed in that same parking lot.

Three different groups will be performing Friday night on the “Blue Stage,” a new addition to the festival especially for music at the corner of Beal and Danforth streets.

Saturday, when about 80 artisans set up their booths on the sidewalks on Main Street, there will also be plenty of sales elsewhere with a tent sale, yard sale and book sale.

Blue Stage performances begin at 9:30 a.m. and a variety of musicians will continue until about 5 p.m.

On Sunday an 8K run and 5K walk will be held along with a pancake breakfast from 7 to 11 a.m. at the Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School.

The festival will celebrate Alanson Mellen “Mellie” Dunham, Norway snowshoe maker and fiddler, who was one of the most celebrated musicians in the country in the mid-1920s.

Gov. John Baldacci had already proclaimed July 12 as Mellie Dunham Day in Maine in celebration of his 150th birthday.

New to the festival is the “Poetry on the Porch” event held on the Weary Club porch and featuring Maine Poet Laureate Barry Wormser.

For 31 years the festival was a one-day arts festival.

Then last year the Western Maine Art Group, organized the event, told then Downtown Revitalization Program Manager Debbie Wyman, they would no longer be able to do it.

“We expanded it to more than one day and added music, food and events from other towns and various vendors, like the New Balance tent sale, McLaughlin Garden tours and the True Value 250,” Wyman said.

Anne Campbell, this year’s program manager, and the revitalization committee expanded the base that had been created.

More music was added through the efforts of the Commons Music Collective, musicians who have joined together to produce concerts and promote music in the area.

“A few of the Collective performed in last year’s festival, after which they volunteered to put together the music component of this year’s festival,” Campbell said. “It started well before it got here.”

She said the food section of the festival had been expanded with the addition of a group of non-profits. She said food booths to benefit the Lady’s Heywood Club, Special Olympics, McLaughlin Gardens, Boy and Girl Scouts and the Finnish-American Heritage Society will be preparing dishes.

“There will be a lot of hungry people on the street,” Campbell said. “There’s no official count, but estimates put crowd at about 5,000 last year. There should be more this year. We’re having some pretty well-known entertainers and so far the weather looks like it will be OK,” she said.

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