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News Feature

Blue Hill
Originally published in The Weekly Packet, June 7, 2012
BHCS parade celebrates Blue Hill’s birthday, draws community

BHCS parade

The BHCS jazz band float leads the marching grades during the school’s June 1 “Go Local” parade honoring Blue Hill’s 250th anniversary.

Photo by Gigi Dejoy

Each grade represented a different aspect of Blue Hill’s geography, history, culture, or resources. Fourth grade celebrated the town’s natural land forms, including Blue Hill Mountain.

Photo by Gigi Dejoy

The steel drum float had Planet Pan members on one side and Rhythm Rockets on the other. Both played as the parade progressed from BHCS through High Street, Pleasant Street, Main Street, then back to school along High Street again.

Photo by Gigi Dejoy

by Gigi DeJoy

Blue Hill Consolidated School held a parade in honor of Blue Hill’s 250th anniversary of its settlement on Friday, June 1.

The theme of the parade, along with the town’s birthday, was “Go Local.” Classes from kindergarten to grade eight were involved in the event, with each grade marching with homemade paper crowns and a banner representing a part of Blue Hill’s history; the topics ranged from lobstering to the Blue Hill Fair.

Every student and teacher wore a “Blue Hill 250” t-shirt designed by sixth-graders Mary Richardson and Kara Morrison and donated by the PTF group.

The students were joined by the BHCS jazz band, along with the elementary and high school steel drum bands Rhythm Rockets and Planet Pan. The three ensembles played music along the route, often causing marchers and observers alike to break into dance. “We actually learned most of the songs new,” said seventh grade jazz band member Joseph Boulet. At the parade’s stop in front of the town hall they played Happy Birthday while the students sang along, “happy birthday Blue Hill.”

The streets were crowded with onlookers, especially the area around the town hall. There, community members gathered alongside throngs of the marchers’ family and friends to cheer and snap pictures. Jennifer Holden, grandmother of third-grader Keegan Butler, was one of these spectators. “He’s very excited,” she said.

No doubt Butler would have been even more excited if he knew how much town pride and sentimentality his school’s event inspired in some viewers. Misha John, a college student who had returned for the summer in time to witness the parade, said, “It was lovely. I’m really glad the whole town could come together and celebrate the history of our community.”

Barbara Ames and Betty Provost were moved by the event. The women, both BHCS school bus drivers, picked out the students who had rode on their busses from the crowd and reminisced on how much they had grown. Sixth grader Alex Sherwood even stepped out of the procession for a moment to greet Ames, his long-time driver. “They’re just a great bunch of kids,” said Provost.

After the parade, all the students returned to the school for a “birthday party” where the music and festive atmosphere continued. “Especially having a birthday cake at the end—we didn’t tell them about that,” said first-grade teacher Judy Cole as she watched her exhilarated students dash around the playground.

The event was planned and executed by members of the BHCS community, including school librarian Beth Jackson, the Go Local Theme Committee, and art teacher Penny Ricker.

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