Barnstead Old Home Day: Classic Vehicles
August 27, 2011
The
Weather:
We were chased by Hurricane ‘Irene’ all day. Most of
the day was the type of weather that precedes a tropical storm – hazy,
hot and humid. But the rain held off until most of the events had
finished. Granted, we did have to stop a few events and exhibits
before their time was up so chairs and tents (thank you Taylor Rental)
could be packed away before the storm. Thank you to the Fiber Arts
and the Historical Society exhibits and to those wishing to have their
turn at the karaoke mike. Be sure to come back next year to sing
us your song.
The
fireworks began earlier than scheduled which, in turn, ended the group,
“Decades”, gig mid-song. But the early start with the fireworks
allowed for them to end before the serious rain started. There was
a couple raindrops falling during the fireworks, but the real steady
rain held off until things were being packed away. The full force
of the storm held off until Sunday and didn’t impact Barnstead nearly as
bad as those in the northern parts of the state.
The
Events:
This year’s theme, Classic Vehicles, was put in the forefront
by a display of about 19 different classic vehicles. David and
Eileen Murley allowed the vehicles, everything from tractors, to cars,
to trucks, to be displayed in their yard across from the Parade Fire
Station. A trophy, from Saymour Trophy of Concord, was presented
to the People’s Choice winner – our own Mary Clarke of Barnstead.
Make a trip into the Town hall to see Mary’s trophy and a picture of her
winning car. Thank you to all the car clubs and individual
classic vehicle owners for helping us fulfill our 2011 theme show.
The day began with the running, or walking, of the 5K race. About
130 racers registered to take part in this year’s event. You can
see all of the race results in an article published in the September 1st
edition of the Baysider and the September 7th edition of the Suncook
Valley Sun. Thanks to Colleen Smith and all the runners and
walkers for making this year’s race a huge success.
A
pancake breakfast was put on at the Parade Fire Station during and after
the race. Fluffy hot pancakes right off the griddle dripping with
maple syrup! Umm! Thanks to Dan Conger of the Barnstead Fire
Rescue for organizing and supervising this event. And thanks to
Chief Mark Tetreault from Barnstead Fire Rescue for the use of Station
1. Not only for its use during the breakfast, but also during the
Chicken BBQ dinner and both the silent and live auctions.
Speaking of the chicken dinner, we would like to thank Laura Foss, from
the Suncook Valley Sno-Riders, for organizing and supervising the
dinner. No one walked away hungry from that scrumptious chicken
feast with all the fixings.
Also,
thanks to Russ Abbott of Atlantic Auction Company. Not only was he
the auctioneer during the auction, but he made a special trip over,
prior to OHD, to scope out the venue and advise Paula Vardaro and Eileen
Murley on how to showcase and auction off some of the items. The
three of them together have had years of experience for pulling off the
fun, fantastic auction that took place. Thank you Amy and all the
other volunteers who helped running the items to the highest bidder.
Linda Peck and Joseph Scalise, of Double Vision, entertained everyone
with their Pantomonium. Audience participation was great and
everyone seemed to enjoy the show. Thank you to Jill Jacques for
arranging the wonderful family friendly entertainment.
Congratulations to Roland ‘Bunk’ Bunker on being named the 2011 Citizen
of the Year. Thank you for all of the work you do and have done
for our community. Read about ‘Bunk’ in the September 1st edition
of the Baysider and the September 7th edition of the Suncook Valley Sun.
Thank you to Saymour Trophy for the Citizen of the Year presentation
plaque.
Raffle
tickets and OHD merchandise went on sale during the first Summer Music
Series concert, at the Parade, put on by Barnstead Parks and Recreation.
Thanks to Tim Eade and Maureen Fitzpatrick, with volunteers Bill
Carpenter, Carol Tiede, Janet Strickland and John Strickland for doing
such a good job selling tickets and merchandise at those concerts and
during OHD. A Husqvarna lawn trimmer, from Barnstead Motorsports,
was raffled off on Saturday and won by John Cotton of Barnstead.
Brad Wingate of Rochester won the pair of folding Adirondack Chairs from
the Christmas Tree Shop of Hyannis, MA. Brad is having a much more
relaxing time than John, but John’s lawn looks great! Thanks
to Nathan for donating time and materials to produce all of those raffle
tickets. Thank you to Jim Barnard for the use of his trailer to
allow us to store all the OHD merchandise before and during the events.
Thanks to Nancy Carr, Barbara Comtois and Matt Raymond for putting
together a booklet with trivia questions, puzzles and interesting facts.
With a special thanks to all the local merchants for purchasing ad space
in the booklet. It would not have been possible without your
support. Other thanks to Granite Image, of Epsom, for doing all
the printing for the booklets and race brochures.
Thank
you to the lovely voices of Grace and Madelyn Winslow of “Hope-Filled
Harmony” for their participation in the talent show. Also, thanks
to Julian Brown for doing a great job as Emcee for the afternoon.
It was nice to hear some of the young local talent signing karaoke.
Boy, did they sound great! American Idol has nothing on
Barnstead’s Old Home Day talent.
The
sounds of horseshoes striking metal posts resounded though out the
morning and well into the afternoon. It is definitely a
quintessential sound of summer. Thanks to Jim Doucette for all of
his work setting up and organizing the horseshoe pits and contest.
We also thank him for his generous donation to the Old Home Day
Committee.
Thank
you to Jan Anderson of J & B Design and Embroidery, of Barnstead, for
doing all of the embroidery on the OHD hats and the tee shirt for the
Citizen of the Year. Peg Simoneau, of Parks and Recreation, made
it possible for us to bring the group “Decades” to sing some of that
good ‘ole rock and roll. They did a great job getting people up
and rocking to some of the golden oldies. They provided just the
right blend of music to get some people’s toes tapping and others
singing along with familiar songs.
To enter the coloring contest it was necessary to color a picture of a
car from this year’s OHD theme: Classic Vehicles. Thank you
to Matt Raymond for creating this year’s design that was used on our tee
shirts, booklets, cake and coloring contest. All the coloring
winners hale from Barnstead. Overall People’s Choice goes to
Gilbert Smith. In the 9-10 year old group, first prize went to
Dylan Aguire. Ryan Treadwell won first in the 7-8 year old group
with Skylar Presbrey winning Honorable Mention. In the 5-6 year
old group, Ricardo Vasquez won first and Ella Smith received Honorable
Mention. In addition to the Classic Vehicle trophy, all blue
ribbons, People’s Choice or participant ribbons were purchased from
Saymour Trophy.
Jaimie
from Tuftonborough won first place in the Art Contest and also won the
People’s Choice award with her painting of the American flag.
Ellen Mitchell, of Barnstead, won the blue ribbon in the Adult Photo
Contest with both People’s Choice and Honorable Mention going to Susan
Cowan, of Penacook. In the Young Adult Art category, first place
went to Audrey Jaques of Barnstead with People’s Choice going to Brendon
Jaques, also of Barnstead. A special thank you to the judges, who
wish to remain anonymous, and to the Oscar Foss Memorial Library for
displaying the art and allowing people access to vote for their
favorites. Thanks to Pam Plante for organizing, not only the
Art/Photo/Coloring contests, but also all of the kids games. With
the help of her daughter, Kaela Plante, they oversaw many games of golf,
bag toss and locking the unruly up in ‘jail’. The climbing
wall from Vertical Dreams, arranged by Jill, was a big hit for young and
old alike and gave a whole new meaning to the word acrophobia.
A lot
of baked goods, organized by Sherri Corliss, arrived for the cakewalk.
Master of Ceremonies, Bob Tiffany, did a fine job playing the music and
calling out the winning numbers. The game was played a number of
times with the winners walking away with a smile and a baked goodie.
Bob was able to provide announcements and music throughout the day
thanks to the sound system and setup provided by Gunner Stohlberg of
Handy Dad for Hire.
Judges
David Scott, Priscilla Tiede and Dan Conger were asked to have the
arduous job of judging the Blueberry Baking Contest. It was a
dirty job, but someone had to do it. The winner of the contest
with her chilled ‘’Bodacious” blueberry pie was Rosalie Hanson of
Plaistow, who generously donated her winnings back to the OHD committee.
In addition to arranging the baking contest, Chari Gauntt also procured
the Classic Vehicle theme cake from Shaws and the fresh, juicy,
delicious watermelon from Rick and Tammy at Duane’s Farm in Barnstead.
The Old
Home Day Committee would like to thank all the vendors and exhibitors,
old and new, that were able to join us for the day. We would also
like to thank Emily Kallgren, Taylor Welch, Kerry Spongberg and the many
volunteers who worked tirelessly behind the scenes and in front to make
the day possible. We hope everyone had a great time and see you
next year.
To
Barnstead Residents: Our first meeting to begin planning next
year’s Old Home Day will take place on October 12th at 6:30 pm at
the Barnstead Town Hall. If you have new ideas or want to see a
certain theme next year, and can commit time to see these come to
fruition, join us on October 12th. If you have any questions, feel
free to call Peggy Sweeney at 435-6505.
Barnstead Police Committee Public Hearing Broadcast on
Metrocast/Public Access Chan. 26
Submitted By Alan
Glassman
On
September 14 a public hearing was held in Barnstead regarding the
concept of shifting police responsibilities from the Barnstead Police
Department to the Belknap County Sheriff’s Department. This 1st of
two public hearings provided an opportunity for the citizens of the town
and other interested people in the region to hear about the findings of
the town’s Police Regionalization Committee and to ask questions of the
Committee, the Board of Selectmen, the Police Chief, and Belknap
County’s Sheriff and Administrator. Due to the interest in
regionalization by citizens and Selectmen in other towns, the slightly
more than 2 ¼ hour public hearing was recorded for playback on New
Hampshire Public Access cable TV stations by Alton resident Bob
Longabaugh, and is now being shown locally on Lakes Region Public
Access(LRPA-TV) Channel 26 on the Metrocast cable system. To
determine the broadcast schedule, check the internet
http://www.lrpa.org/program/program26.pdf, or view Channel 24
at the top of the hour to see the broadcast schedule. In
addition, a DVD of the hearing is available at the Oscar Foss Memorial
Library located on Rt. 126 in Barnstead across from the Town Hall. For
further information about the hearings, please contact the Barnstead
Board of Selectmen at 603-269-4071. For information regarding the
video, please contact Bob Longabaugh at 603-875-5067. (Note: The next
public hearing on September 28 is NOT currently scheduled to be
broadcast on Metrocast).
Obituaries
Muriel M. Buckman
Muriel
M. Buckman, 84, of Barnstead, died September 16th at the CRVNA Hospice
House following a brief illness. She was born in Barnstead, the daughter
of Linwood and Cecile (Prince) Munsey. She was the widow of George
Buckman Jr. and they were a military family having lived on many Air
Force bases during his career. Upon George’s retirement from the US Air
Force they returned to Barnstead in 1975. George died in 2007.
Survivors include a daughter, Sharon Smith of Hooksett, a son George S.
Buckman III of Manchester, ten Grandchildren, 4 Great
Grandchildren and a brother, Kenneth Munsey of Amherst.
A
Graveside Service will be held Friday, September 23rd at the NH Veterans
Cemetery, Boscawen at 11:00 AM. The Rev. Brian Gower, Pastor of the
Center Barnstead Christian Church will officiate. In lieu of flowers,
donations in her memory may be made to the CRVNA, Hospice Program, 30
Pillsbury St. Concord, NH 03301. For more information or to sign an on
line guest book, log on to perkinsandpollard.com. Perkins & Pollard
Memorial Home, Pittsfield, is assisting with arrangements.
