By Terry Karkos,Staff Writer

RUMFORD – Of the $30,000 owed by Moontide Water Festival Inc., $3,000 has been paid so far by the Rumford nonprofit’s president and his wife.

“We’re still trying to raise funds” for next year’s festival, and pay the bills, Moontide President Joseph F. Roberts said late Thursday afternoon.

In August, Roberts guaranteed that the debt incurred for this year’s three-day Rumford Fourth of July celebration and fireworks display, and a canceled rock concert, would be repaid by himself and his wife, Angella.

“Angella and I said we would take care of it. Yeah, it’s a sacrifice on our part, but we had planned to do it if something happened,” Joseph Roberts said.

Moontide owes $7,000 to the town of Rumford, $15,000 to the fireworks supplier, and $8,000 to an unnamed investor who had supplied the deposit for the Gregg Rolie Band’s appearance at the canceled Aug. 21 concert at the Mexico Recreation Park.

“With Moontide being a nonprofit corporation, we could have filed for bankruptcy, but that’s not the way we operate,” he said.

“Scripture says that a good name is rather to be had than great riches, and that’s the way I look at it. And, since I’m the head of it, I would rather have a good name than write off a few thousand dollars,” said Joseph Roberts, who is also pastor of the Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Rumford.

Moontide and Angella Roberts, who owns and runs Roberts Chiropractic Wellness Care at 43 Exchange St. in Rumford’s downtown, are to pay off the $15,000 bill; her husband, the $7,000 loan from the town.

Once those bills are paid, then they would pay back the investor, Joseph Roberts said.

“When the concert didn’t go, I personally called the investor, met with him and told him he would have to take a back seat to the festival debt. We had signed an agreement with him that he could lose that money if the concert failed, but I feel that, here again, it’s the right thing to do to pay him back.

“I’m an honest man with integrity, and, in spite of all the innuendoes of wrongdoing, we never did anything wrong, and we never planned to,” Joseph Roberts said.

Angella Roberts has paid $3,000 and her husband is to pay his first installment this month using money he receives from a missions office in Texarkana, Texas, for his pastorship.

“I’m what’s called an interstate missionary, and my paycheck comes from funds from an international fellowship of churches and individuals all over the country,” he said.

In August, Joseph Roberts moved his small church into the former Rumford Probation and Parole office at 43 Congress St., less than a block from his wife’s business, where the church was previously located.

“So, we’re just going right along, doing what we have to do,” he added.