WEST PARIS — The annual West Paris Old Home Days will celebrate the former manufacturing businesses in town during a three-day event on June 13, 14 and 15 that will feature music, food, games, a parade and fireworks.
The theme for this year’s event is “A Step Back in Time, Honoring our Town.”
“We are focusing on three of the families who were staples in West Paris with their manufacturing businesses — the Penleys, the Mann and the Emery families,” committee member Karen Birney said in a statement announcing the events. “We have asked members of each family to be our grand marshals.”
Old Home Days was restarted around 2000 after a 20-year hiatus when as many as 1,500 area people showed up to watch a parade that included floats, antique cars and much more.
The return of the Old Home Days also saw the return of the soap box races down Curtis Hill that were popular in the 1950s. In 2000, the track was rebuilt as Derby Hill, and soap box racing began again for a time.
While soap box racing will not be held this year, the program is filled with fun for all ages, including fry pan-throwing contests, he-man competitions, train displays, horseshoe tournaments, a baby show, rides by Summit Adventure and even a duck race.
The event begins at 1 p.m. Friday, June 13, with a photo display about old-time Maine logging at the Arthur L. Mann Memorial Library on Main Street and a flag ceremony on Kingsbury Street at 5 p.m.
Birney said the fireworks display has been moved to 9:30 p.m. Saturday, June 14.
Music will include a DJ on Friday night and two different bands on Saturday. “We are happy to have up-and-coming group Brazen Cane Saturday afternoon and Hurricane Mountain on Saturday night,” Birney said.
Summit Adventures will be there Friday and Saturday this year with extended hours on Saturday, giving families a chance to bring the kids.
The event also includes the alumni banquet at the Agnes Gray School at 5 p.m. on June 14.
On Sunday, June 15, there will be a special presentation by the Finnish-American Heritage Society of the Keiketys, a dance troop which will be visiting the area from Finland and local Kantele group “A Chording to Kantele.”
The free performance will take place at 3 p.m. at the Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School Forum in Paris.
ldixon@sunjournal.com
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