Organizers of the 2014 Troy Bicentennial Celebration think they have a successful formula: learning experiences mixed with fun.
An outline of events being planned for the city’s bicentennial year was given Oct. 3 during a kickoff program at the Troy-Hayner Cultural Center.
Doug Tremblay, a city council member active in the Museum of Troy History, and Stan Kegley, a longtime city employee, are serving as celebration co-chairs. They’ve put together what Mayor Mike Beamish termed a “crackerjack team” to plan and carry out the celebration.
Beamish said the team would bring together 200 years of history for local residents to share and enjoy. The city this summer hosted the Mumford and Sons Gentlemen of the Troy music stopover, drawing some 40,000 people to town. The event, Beamish said, now is a piece of local history.
“It was history, and we all lived it through it,” he said. “For 200 years we’ve had history in the making in Troy.”
Next year will be a busy one for community institutions celebrating milestones with The Troy Foundation turning 75 and the Hayner center hitting 100.
Celebration organizers gave kick off guests a taste of what lies ahead with a display of local history items and the showing of a tape of the 1964 city sesquicentennial parade.
The celebration will be wrapped around two major events.
The first is a birthday party planned Jan. 4 and the other is a Sept. 20 parade and what committee member Tom Kendall described as a “closing spectacular” at Hobart Arena.
The birthday party will be held at the Hobart/PMI headquarters building on South Ridge Avenue.
It will feature tabletop displays of businesses and organizations and other displays telling the stories of activities that shaped the community such as the soapbox derby and the Sing Out Troy group, said Tom Cooney, committee member. Troy’s good side will be on display but the “bad and ugly,” such as the 1913 flood and scandals, won’t be ignored, he promised.
“We expect this to be quite an afternoon with both a learning experience and some fun,” Cooney said.
The Troy Historical Society and local Historical Alliance have numerous activities in the work, said Judy Deeter of the historical society. Among them are educational programs and the showing of a 1962 film called “Troy Story” depicting everyday life in the community at that time.
The bicentennial parade will be followed by the arena celebration with music, family activities and a lot of surprises, Kendall said.
For more information, contact Tremblay at (937) 339-5155 or email questions to troy200@troyohio.gov.
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