Sweet time at syrup festival

By Mary Grzebieniak

news@vindy.com

BOARDMAN

The 33rd annual Maple Syrup Festival at Boardman Park, which continues from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. today, Saturday and next Sunday, is a refreshing departure from the usual festival.

Instead of booths offering greasy food and cheap baubles, the festival offers demonstrations of maple syrup-making, costumed Civil War re-enactors eager to discuss history, a local art group displaying its wares and a group of woodcarvers looking to recruit new members.

While all this is going on, the Boardman Rotary Club is serving a pancake breakfast in the Lariccia Family Community Center.

A continual demonstration of maple syrup-making goes on in a log cabin at the park. Gabe Manginelli, a park employee, describes the process and hands out information on the craft.

Containers hang on trees throughout the park to collect the sap, which is boiled down to make syrup. Manginelli said additional information is available from the Ohio State Cooperative Extension at www.ohioline.osu.edu/for-fact/0036.html.

Nearby, a group of about 30 Civil War re-enactors in various costumes relax in an outdoor pavilion and make themselves available to talk about their hobby. Ron Johnson, an eighth-grade American history teacher in Austintown, portrays Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was related to him by marriage.

Johnson is ready to discuss the Civil War and the reasons for it from the Southern perspective. He is with the 7th Tennessee Cavalry re-enactors.

Other re-enactors there are the 4th Alabama and the 61st Ohio Infantry, which is a Yankee group. Also attending are the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which Johnson commands.

Meanwhile, inside the Lariccia Center, Lynn Rosati and Pat Sekola of the Mahoning Valley Watercolor Society display an array of their members’ work and hope to make the public more aware of the group, which was formed in 1984. The society welcomes artists at all ages and levels of expertise. Rosati said new members are welcome at club meetings, 7 to 9 p.m. the second and fourth Mondays from September through May in the Boardman High School art room. More information is available at the group’s Web site at www.artgally.com/mvws.

Next to the watercolor artists, local woodcarvers display their work and hand out information to potential members. Jim Shevchenko of Canfield, the group’s former president, said the group meets at 6:30 the second Thursday of the month at First Presbyterian Church on West Main Street, Canfield. They also meet at Arby’s in Canfield on the first and third Tuesdays.

Shevchenko said the traditional craft is dying out, and in an attempt to spark interest, his group is willing to help any adult get started. He said that though woodworking is regarded traditionally as done by men, about 45 percent of the group’s members are women.

Many of the members are self-taught, and one member, Bill Phillips of Lisbon, makes his own tools out of Exacto knives and sewing-machine needles. The work is done manually or with woodworking machines.

Among work displayed at the festival are relief carving, a carved quilt, chip carving and flower, bird and cartoon characters in several styles.

For more information call John Lesko, president, at (330) 986-0990.

Finally, members of Boy Scout Troop 60, sponsored by Westminster Presbyterian Church in Boardman, led by Scoutmaster Byron Harnishfeger, are attending the festival to practice several skills in the park, including fire-building and orienteering (navigation through the use of a map and compass).

Their parents are having a basket raffle in the Lariccia building.

Admission to the festival is free. There is a charge for the Rotary breakfast.