Orono gears up for bicentennial celebration

ORONO – Organizers hope to involve the entire community in the planning and celebration of the town’s 200th birthday in 2006.

With the event still in the planning and fund-raising stages, now is the time for residents to contribute ideas about how to make the 2006 yearlong celebration a special one, according to Ginny Whitaker, co-chairwoman of the Bicentennial Committee.

“We’re looking for ideas that will help make this event stay in the minds of children as well as grown-ups,” she said Wednesday. “We’re looking for something that people who are very young now, just kids, will remember when they’re 50 years old.”

Whitaker encourages residents to attend committee meetings and visit the bicentennial Web site at www.orono2006.com.

The next committee meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 24, at the town hall.

In preparation for the celebration, committee members have begun to raise money and brainstorm ideas for commemorative activities.

“At Orono Festival Day we passed out fliers and we collected people’s opinions on various events and also collected their names if they were interested,” Whitaker said. Orono schools, clubs and organizations and the University of Maine all will be involved in the event, she said.

“One big outreach effort is the cookbook,” Whitaker said. The book, which will be sold to raise money for birthday events, will be a collection of recipes from residents. Organizers have a goal of receiving 500 submissions.

“We’re hoping everybody in town will contribute at least one recipe,” Whitaker said.

The committee also is planning to host a communitywide yard sale, solicit donations and sell a variety of Orono memorabilia, including plates, mugs and maps.

“[I have] no idea how much money we need to raise because what we’re doing, just like a family does, is that if we can’t afford to do it, we won’t do it,” Whitaker said.

The Orono-Old Town Kiwanis club already has pledged $2,500 toward the bicentennial celebration and has agreed to sponsor the 2006 fireworks and Memorial Day Parade. The Orono Garden Club also will work to raise money through plant sales.

At the University of Maine, Ray Hintz, chairman of the Department of Surveying and Engineering, plans to map the trail system in town with the help of some of his students. The map should be completed sometime during the spring 2006 semester, according to Whitaker.

“We’ll have a really nice birthday present in that,” Whitaker said.

She said she’s also excited about people from around the state and country who have sent the committee historical tidbits, such as the history of the town’s homes and nicknames of people who attended Orono High School.”It’s delightful because it’s unpredictable and it’s as rich and different as the people are,” Whitaker said.

In the end, Whitaker said she hopes the celebration will bring the community together and be a time to remember for years to come. “Just imagine sort of a yearlong party where you come out of it feeling like you’re glad you live here,” she said.