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Event:
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Homer Historical Society Fall Festival
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Date:
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Saturday, September 22nd, 2018
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Time:
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11:00 AM − 4:30 PM
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Organization:
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Homer Historical Society |
Location:
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Blair Historical Farm 26645 M-60 East Homer, MI Phone: none www.homerhistoricalsociety.org
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Cost:
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free admission and parking
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Contact:
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Donna Scudder Phone: 517-568-3920 Click Here to Email
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Description:
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Homer Historical Society elects officers, changes meeting day, and plans Fall Festival and car show
The Homer Historical Society took care of a lot of business at its April 26 annual meeting. Topics ranged from meeting dates, and election of officers to asking the public for photographs of old barns.
Changing the day of the organization’s monthly meetings from the last Wednesday night to the last Thursday night was one of the important items. This move accommodates board members’ schedules and establishes a consistent day year-round.
Wednesdays were selected for board meetings when the Historical Society was formed in 1974. Meetings were held at Blair Historical Farm and in private homes. However, for the last few years, the Homer Public Library, which is open on Thursday nights, has been used during winter months. All monthly meetings will now be on the last Thursday of the month at 7 p.m., but the location will continue to depend on the weather and the library’s availability.
Newly elected officers which, according to the organization’s bylaws are elected at the annual meeting, include Bruce Miller, president; Dee Camp, vice president; Donna Scudder, secretary; and Sue Woodliff, treasurer. They will serve until the next annual meeting in 2019.
Trustees serve staggered three-year terms. Mary Berry and Janice Boden will serve from 2018 to 2021. Trustees continuing their previously elected terms include Isabell Nazar and Lynda Dunn, 2017 to 2020; and Micki Miller and Linda Wilbur, 2016 to 2019. Clem Camp remains on the board as the most recent past president not serving in another elected capacity.
The Homer Historical Society Fall Festival has been the organization’s major event drawing visitors from miles around since it began in 1976. Planning goes on all year for activities and displays to showcase local history and pioneer farm life. This year’s Fall Festival at Blair Historical Farm will be Saturday, September 22, and historic barns will be the featured display.
Old wooden barns generate a sense of tradition and rural life, and they were essential to farm life when Albert Blair built his farm house in 1875 east of Homer on the road we now call M- 60. As young women in the early 1900s his daughters, Maude and Bess Blair, had a thriving silkworm industry in an upstairs bedroom of the farm house in order to make enough money build their barn in 1910.
There are many types of old barns: Dutch barns built by early settlers from New York state westward, crib barns significant to American agriculture, round barns built by the Shakers, and the list goes on. Many of the oldest barns have already fallen apart, and others have deteriorated as they are no longer needed. The Historical Society is working hard to gather as many photographs as possible of old barn types in this part of the state so the pictures and the stories that go with them can be shared now and in the future.
Anyone with one or several barn photographs they would like to loan for the Fall Festival is asked to contact Donna Scudder by email at Donna49245@gmail.com or call her at 517-568-3920. Information about the barns is also appreciated. Facts such as barn style, age, construction, or a family story related to the barn would also be useful for the display.
Plans are also well underway, and potential sponsors are being contacted, for the Homer Historical Society’s vintage car and truck show at the Blair Farm Sunday, July 22. Vehicle registration will be from 9 a.m. to noon. Goodie bags will be given to the first 50 entrants, and dash plaques to the first 100. Awards will be presented at 3 p.m. There is no admission fee for spectators.
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Categories:
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Festivals
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(1202)
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