Paraders to sing Bangor’s praises Tree lighting also part of Festival of Lights

BANGOR – If you see someone marching down Main Street with a shopping cart Saturday night, don’t call the police.

Bangor Center Corp. borrowed the cart from Shaw’s for the annual Holiday Festival of Lights Parade, which steps off at 4:30 p.m. at Bass Park. BCC’s entry features a song-and-dance tribute to shopping in downtown Bangor with lyrics by Suzanne Kelly of Kelly Realty Management and choreography by Catherine LeClair of the Bangor Symphony Orchestra.

It is one of 60 entries in the parade, which will feature the Madawaska High School and the Governor’s Restaurant marching bands, along with plenty of holiday cheer.

“We have dancers, floats, marchers, we have all kinds of fun things,” said Deb Farnham, who organized the parade for Bangor’s noontime Rotary Club. “We have businesses, community organizations, youth groups – you name it, we’ve got it.”

This year, the parade will depart from its usual route. Marchers will head down Main Street, bear right onto State Street and wrap around onto Exchange Street A tree-lighting ceremony will take place at the conclusion of the parade, about 5:30 p.m., in West Market Square.

“We’re particularly happy that the parade is now an evening parade, because it makes the tree-lighting that follows it that much more dramatic,” said Sally Bates of BCC, which has sponsored the tree lighting for the last three years.

BCC’s entry in the parade – its first – is sure to be an attention-getter. Bates has cobbled together a group of 15 “theater people, good-time girls and people who have other talents” including a couple who will be rushing back from a tango lesson in Blue Hill for the event. They will sing along with vocalist Sophia Wilder to “Downtown … Bangor,” (to the tune of Mary Wells’ “My Guy”), wearing headlamps and toting shopping bags.

“Our enthusiasm for downtown Bangor is over the top,” Bates wrote in a recent e-mail. “It’s extreme. It’s without modesty or restraint. It’s without pride or concern for our personal images.”

And now that the parade takes place in the evening, Bates says, people can grab a bite to eat after the tree lighting, but more important, they can get some serious shopping done beforehand. Because, as the song goes, “We’ve got spirit and soul, you’ve gotta stop, shop and stroll in downtown.”