Members of Mattawamkeag Community Pride are pleased to invite you to their second annual Mattawamkeag Fun Day beginning at 7 a.m. Saturday, July 14, in that community.

MCP president Janice Rideout reports you will find lots of fun things to do and lots of entertainment to enjoy.

Crafters and vendors will offer their wares from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. that day around the Mattawamkeag Municipal Building, and you can view a Quilt Show from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Municipal Hall.

The Fun Day parade theme is “Honor ‘Keag School Colors” of orange and black. The parade begins at 10 a.m.

A dog show will be held 11 a.m.-noon at the community recreation area, and you can enjoy strawberry shortcake from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Municipal Hall.

The music you hear will be coming from the municipal parking area, where an open microphone, sponsored by Bob Bell, is available 11 a.m.-noon and 1-4 p.m.; a gospel concert is noon to 1 p.m. You are encouraged to “bring your chairs and relax under the big top.”

Children’s games, sponsored by the Church of God, will be featured from noon to 2 p.m. at the recreation area.

Members of the town’s fire department will offer water slides from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. at Dr. Carl Troutt School, and a Relay for Life Supper is scheduled from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. in Municipal Hall.

Mattawamkeag Fun Day ends with dancing to the music of Lenny and the Misfitz from 8 p.m. to midnight in Municipal Hall.

Rideout hopes you attend and enjoy the day.

From Bob Pentland we learn that the “fun-filled Downeast Center Ring Circus Band Concert is 7:30 p.m. Friday, July 13, in the spacious, comfortable, air-conditioned auditorium” at Bucksport Middle School on Miles Lane in that community.

“A family-friendly event,” he wrote, the concert raises funds for music scholarships for “worthy students in Hancock, Penobscot and Washington counties.”

And while admission to the concert is free, a bucket will be passed for a suggested donation of $5 to benefit the scholarship fund.

Pentland reports the scholarship program “has grown from awarding two, $100 scholarships, to last year’s awards of 13. Since its inception in 1997, more than 73 scholarships have been awarded. This year we are hoping to be able to offer 22 scholarships.”

Professor Gene Nichols, associate professor of music at the University of Maine in Machias, and one of the funniest, most enjoyable musicians you’ll ever see, will conduct the 40-plus-piece circus band, which will feature “marches, specialty numbers, an overture, featured solos and just about anything one could ask for in happy, upbeat music,” Pentland wrote.

“Maestro Gene is a former director of music and band director for the Clyde Beatty Circus and Wild West Show” which has performed throughout the world.

Don Blodgett of Orland is producing the event, which features musicians from New Brunswick, Washington, D.C., Florida, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine and several other states, Pentland reports.

If you’ve never attended one of these concerts, please make plans to go.

I promise that everyone, of all ages, will have a terrific, toe-tapping, hand-clapping time.

If you’re headed for the Portland Sea Dogs home baseball game at 7 p.m. Friday, July 13, you might be interested in knowing that C.N. Brown Co. employees and team members will be hosting an event to benefit the Maine Chapter of the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Kim Mancini of the MDA Maine Chapter in Westbrook e-mailed that C.N. Brown employees, volunteers and MDA staff will be at the game selling scratch tickets for chances to win a signed Sea Dog player’s jersey from that evening’s game.

“Jerseys Off Their Backs,” and many other prizes, will be awarded at the end of the game, and the winners will be invited onto the field to accept their jerseys from their players.

MDA Local Goodwill Ambassador, 11-year-old Derek Vintinner of Randolph, will throw out the first pitch.

Derek has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a genetic, degenerative disease that progressively affects all voluntary muscles, including the heart and breathing muscles, Mancini explained.

Mancini wrote that C.N. Brown “is the largest sponsor” of the Maine Chapter of MDA, raising more than $250,000 for the organization each year, and “Jerseys Off Their Backs” is one of the company’s annual fundraisers.

For more information, call MDA at 800-339-3749 or visit www.mda.org.

Joni Averill, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402; 990-8288.