Benedum Festival Ready to Roll for this Weekend
By Julie Perine on July 09, 2015 via Connect-Bridgeport.com
Details have been ironed out for this weekend’s Benedum Festival at Bridgeport City Park. The action gets under way at noon Friday as the oil and gas expo will be open through 5 p.m., at which time inflatable attractions and carnival games will be open through dark. Friday’s series of live music begins at 2 p.m. with Johnny Bryan and Aaron Henry, who will perform through 4 p.m. at the oil and gas expo. At 6 p.m., the southern rock and blues band, “Prowler” will take the Benedum Festival stage, followed by an 8 p.m. jazz performance by Seth Maynard and Osmosis.
Saturday is the festival’s big day, beginning with a pair of popular activities. The Kiwanis fishing derby – free to enter – takes place 7:30 a.m. at Deegan Lake and the Annual 5K Run launches 8:30 a.m. from Wayne Jamison Field. The Bridgeport Lions Club chicken roast starts at 10 a.m., just in front of Bridgeport High School.
At Bridgeport City Park, the GFWC Bridgeport Juniors will once again sponsor a bucket walk to raise awareness of the lack of clean water available to people across the world. All walk proceeds benefit NURU International. Walk registration begins at 9 a.m. and the walk gets under way at 10 a.m.
From 11 a.m. to dark, inflatable attractions and carnival games will be open and festival attendees can meet and interact with a variety of Disney/cartoon characters including Olaf from “Frozen” and the popular superhero Spiderman.
Featuring various businesses representing the oil and gas industry, the oil and gas expo will be open 2 p.m. to dark. A puppet show will be held at 3 p.m. and the West Virginia Cruisers car show will take place from 4-8 p.m.
Also starting at 2 p.m. will be the live music of Rus Reppert, who will deliver his signature sound of acoustic Appalachian music. At 4 p.m., Lauren Starkey will rock it out, followed by a 6 p.m. performance by “Bullets & Bracelets” and an 8 p.m. finale featuring the southern rock and blues of Greg Harrison. Beginning around 9:30 p.m., fireworks will light up the skies.
Winners of the recent Benedum Festival Pageant will be on hand to greet festival attendees. A 17-year-old from St. Albans, Morgan Smith was named Benedum Festival Queen and will do a nice job serving as festival ambassador, said Kristin Wilson, pageant director. As was proven during the pageant, Smith is very personable and converses with ease; an important role of the festival queen. She is also very conscientious about the purpose of the festival, Wilson said.
“She was very anxious to learn about Michael Benedum,” Wilson said. “This pageant is to honor him so I wanted a girl who could do that. This is a job and I know Morgan is going to take it that way. She is very eager to participate.”
There is no admission charge to attend to the Benedum Festival and enjoy all entertainment and the Saturday night fireworks display. Jason McCall serves as this year's Benedum Festival chair.
