Poland gears up for annual festival
POLAND
This year’s Celebrate Poland events will begin with a Strawberry Festival at 5 p.m. Friday at Poland Presbyterian Church and end with fireworks at 10 p.m. Saturday at Baird Mitchell Field.
Robert Lidle, a township trustee, said he’s expecting 5,000 to 8,000 people from across the Valley to attend the sixth annual event that provides food and fun packed into a two-day festival.
“We are really expecting a good show,” Lidle said.
Admission is free, and people can enjoy the band High Noon, scheduled to play from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. Friday at the Cortland Field Stage, while they stop and grab a bite from various vendors that will be set up throughout.
The fireworks show will be led by Greg Morrison, the “Pyro Professor,” Lidle said.
It will be “27 minutes of the best fireworks you’ll ever see,” Lidle said.
In the past, the fireworks show took place on the first night of the festival. For the second-consecutive year, the new installation of the schedule will be in full force.
“We kept hearing the same thing — a lot of people wanted the fireworks on Saturday. So we made the change last year, and everyone seemed to like it,” said Morrison, Celebrate Poland president. “It makes sense to end the festival that way.”
The newest of the Ohio Historical markers also will be dedicated at 11 a.m. Saturday in front of the Home Savings building on U.S. Route 170. Several McKinley Awareness committee members watched Monday morning as street-department workers installed the historical marker commemorating where U.S. President William McKinley once lived.
Dave Smith, Town 1 Streetscapes trustee, said the marker was being set Monday and covered until Saturday’s dedication.
“We’re proud of the fact that a president of the United States and his family lived here several years,” Smith said.
Smith said he has three actors scheduled to re-enact three key times in McKinley’s life during the ceremony.
“I’ve got a nine-year-old boy who’s going to portray McKinley when he lived here,” Smith said. “I’ve got an 18-year-old soldier who’s actually going to be in uniform ... to read a couple selections from McKinley’s diary, and I’ve talked a friend of mine into portraying McKinley as a candidate for president in 1896.”
A reception at Cafe Wittenaurs will follow the ceremony, Smith said.
This year’s festival is funded mainly through private donations, Lidle said.
“This year, [the festival] is entirely taxpayer-free,” Lidle said. “We welcome everyone across the Mahoning Valley to come check out Poland.”