OCR Text |
Show Plans Underway For Escalante Days Festival ESCALANTE - The Escalante Festival Days will begin on Friday evening, May 28, in the high school auditorium auditori-um with a program featuring Cowboy Poetry by local poets special appearances by Clayton Carter and Lynn and Mike Griffin and music by Steve Downs, formerly of the Bar G Wranglers, and his wife. It promises to be an entertaining evening. At 8 a.m. Saturday morning, (See FESTIVAL on page 5A) Escalante Festival From Front Paee May 29, ground-breaking ceremonies cere-monies will be held for the Escalante-Boulder Veterans, Memorial to be built in Escalante. Ground-breaking will take place on the northeast corner cor-ner of the Escalante City Park at the site of the old Red Brick Elementary School. Everyone is invited, and anyone can participate partici-pate by bringing a shovel. Construction will begin the following fol-lowing week. Dedication of the Memorial is scheduled for 2 p.m. on Saturday, July 24, as part of the Pioneer Day Celebration. Breakfast will be served at the park by the Escalante Chapter of the Sons of the Utah Pioneers immediately following the groundbreaking ceremonies. Everyone is invited to bring their family and enjoy breakfast with their friends. At 10 a.m., the crafts fair will begin and to be held at the Escalante City Park this year. It will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. with continuous live entertainment entertain-ment coordinated by Emily Lott Woolsey. At 6 p.m., a bake oven dinner will be served in the Park by the Potato Valley Lions Club. Festival goers are urged to support sup-port both the Sons of the Utah Pioneers and the Potato Valley Lions Club, since they have both contributed generously with money to help build the Veterans, Memorial. The evening will be capped off with a play at 8 p.m. in the high school auditorium. The play is entitled "From Hell,s Backbone to Calf Creek, The CCC camps in Escalante from 1933 to 1942." It is an original play written by Kay Cook of the English and Drama Department at Southern Utah State University. 'It will feature local actors who will be portraying local characters from Escalante who were either in, or worked for, the CCC in the 1930s. Escalante was fortunate to have had four CCC camps in the area during the 1930, which provided pro-vided both money and employment employ-ment for Escalante residents. One person said, "The good they did for Escalante may never be fully comprehended." The towns of Escalante and Boulder were first connected by a road that could carry motorized motor-ized equipment in 1933 when the CCCs built the Hells Backbone Bridge and pushed the road through Salt Gulch to Boulder. An all-weather road was constructed between 1936 and 1941 when the "Million Dollar Highway" was built through Calf Creek, ending the carrying of mail by mule and horseback between the two towns. Everyone is invited to attend all of the activities during the two days festivities. r |