Hiawatha news
Tourist Park Dam rebuild to start this summer
Construction on a new dam at the Tourist Park is slated to start this summer and be completed before the end of the year. Staff members at the Marquette Board of Light and Power, which is coordinating the project, have been in regular contact with Hiawatha and have assured us that the work will not disrupt our Festival. For details, please see the May 6, 2010, article in the Marquette Mining Journal
The original dam - as well as one corner of the Park - was washed away in May 2003, when a dam up river broke and flooded the Dead River System.
Congratulations, Arts and Culture honorees
The Marquette Arts and Culture Center has announced its 14th Annual Recognition Awards, and the list includes several friends of Hiawatha:
Margaret Boyle, Community Arts Activist. Margaret has organized the monthly acoustic jams at Peter White Public Library.
Barbara Knox, Outstanding Arts Educator. Barb presents our yoga workshops at the Festival.
Corinne Rockow, Outstanding Performance Artist. Great traditional singer/songwriter.
Garden Bouquet and Design, Special Recognition, Garden Bouquet is our Baraga Street neighbor and sometime concert co-sponsor.
Other honorees include Sue Accocks, Arts Volunteer; Connie Weiner, Outstanding Arts Educator; Target Stores, Arts Business Honor Roll; Mark Mitchell, Outstanding Visual Artist; Steve Leuthold, Outstanding Performnace Artist; Beverly Matherne, Outstanding Writer; Carol Phillips, Special Recognition; Adam Whittington, Youth Award.
New Hiawatha board members elected
Jesse Luttenton of Marquette was elected to the Hiawatha board of directors, and four incumbent board members were returned for second terms at the Annual Members' Meeting on November 7. Returning incumbents are Chuck Howe, Ron Larson, J. Pearl Taylor and Phil Watts.
For minutes of this meeting, please click here
Bill and Lois Brazier of Marquette won the 2010 Festival Package doorprize.
A dance following the meeting featured the Cajun sounds of the Billy Butcher Bayou Band. The dance was open to the public.
Thanks to all who joined us for the meeting and dance; thanks to the Peter White Public Library staff for the great venue; and thanks to Dead River Coffee for the donation of coffee and the use of a coffeemaker.
Board president Jim Jajicjh conducts the 2009 Annual Members Meeting
Performance tent approved as probable set-aside fund use
The Hiawatha board of directors believes they have found a use for approximately two-thirds of the City of Marquette's "set-aside fund," which was established in the early years of the Festival's presence at the Tourist Park.
On June 16, 2009, the Hiawatha board agreed to approve the use of $22,000 of the nearly $35,000 in the fund to support the purchase of a large, portable Arabesque-brand performance tent, which can be shared by Marquette-area event groups, including Hiawatha. It is most likely that Hiawatha will use the new tent as a second-stage dance tent. A tent brochure is available at the Hiawatha office or you may view Arabesque tents online.
In Hiawatha's early contracts, the City agreed to set aside a portion of each year's site rent to ultimately be used for a project at Tourist Park to benefit both the Park and the Festival. That project was originally identified as a Pavilion but was termed a "mutually agreeable project" in later contracts. The set-aside was discontinued in 2001.
When additions to the set-aside fund stopped, Hiawatha and the City began a year-long discussion of the best use for that fund. That effort produced a proposal for a 7,200-square-foot, open Pavilion with nearby bathrooms and adequate parking. The final project proposed to the Commission would have cost approximately $500,000, with Hiawatha responsible for raising $34,500 in addition to the $28,000 then held in the set-aside fund.
That Pavilion will almost certainly never be built. In 2002, the Marquette City Commission voted 4-3 not to apply for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources grant that would have funded almost half the cost of a proposed Pavilion. Then, in May 2003, the only section of the Tourist Park the City would consider for a Pavilion was washed away by the flood on the Dead River system.
In 2008, Marquette actor and arts activist Gale LaJoye proposed that the city purchase an Arabesque performance tent for use by many local arts groups.
The Hiawatha board has formally declared that it would consider the purchase of this tent an acceptable use of the set-aside money - now totaling approximately $34,000 - as long as the final agreement included a period of free tent use for the Co-op (now tentatively proposed at seven years), and the purchase was supported by other user-group donations and grant money. The Marquette Arts and Culture Center has received a grant to help fund the tent purchase. Overall cost of the tent and basic staging and lights would be approximately $150,000.
Thanks to all who offered money for the Pavilion project and to all who appeared at City Commission meetings, wrote letters of support and generated letters of support from other organizations. Your efforts were greatly appreciated in spite of the failure of the Pavilion proposal. We'lll keep you posted about this new proposal.
Marquette's new Arabesque tent at Mattson Lower Harbor Park in August 2009. (Nikke Nason photo)
Marquette Arts and Culture Awards
Hiawatha congratulates the 2009 recipients of Marquette Arts and Culture Awards. (Hiawatha received the Community Organization Award in 2006.)
This year's honorees include three recipients with ties to the traditional music community:
Dave Bett: Special Recognition - given to a working community artist
who has consistently made a contribution and had an impact upon the
community in an artistic discipline. Dave is a long-time Hiawatha member, past board member and officer, and frequent Festival performer. Special congratulations to this member of the traditional-music community!
Dianne Patrick: Community Arts Activist - As a person who makes things
happen and has demonstrated significant accomplishment in advancing and
supporting the arts in our community. Her business, Snowbound Books is a longtime Hiawatha supporter.
Marquette Area Blues Society: Special Recognition - Given to a Community
Organization that has consistently made an impact upon the community in
the arts.
Rest In Peace
Mike Seeger, whose love for traditional songs and tunes inspired many other musicians, including Bob Dylan, to look for the rural roots of American music, died of cancer August 7, 2009, at his home in Lexington, Va. He was 75. Seeger played at the first Hiawatha Festival in Champion, Mich.
John "Bowling Green" Cephas, the legendary Piedmont blues guitarist and baritone vocalist, who was recently honored as a 2009 Library of Virginia African American Trailblazer, died March 4, 2009, at home in Woodford in Caroline County. He was 78. He and his partner Phil Wiggins performed at the 2006 Hiawatha Festival.
Johnny Perona, Michigan Heritage Master bones player and teacher, died February 1, 2009, at age 88. His 75-year performing career included many appearances at the Hiawatha Festival. Johnny was a recipient of a Michigan Heritage Award in 2002.
Odetta, an American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a human rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement," died December 2, 2008. Her music included American folk, blues, jazz and spirituals. If God sings, it sounds like Odetta.
North Star gives our trailer
a great new look
A group of students at North Star Academy in Marquette volunteered to paint a festive mural on one side of the semi-trailer that Hiawatha uses for "cold storage." The group designed the colorful mural and finished painting the trailer in early June. The trailer will be parked near the second-stage dance tent during the Festival, and we hope you'll stop and view this clever piece of art.
Special thanks to North Star students, staff members, volunteers and business people who helped with the mural project: Chloe Adams, April Bibler, Nicole Bruge, Tory Christensen, Austin Gudavich, Jaqueline Hegmegee, Mimi LaFave, Timmy Landgren, Vizma Loos, Heather Lownds, Katy Martin, Corra Runion, Eric Schweppe, Graceanne Stark, Libby Nelson, Karen Anderson, Carol Phillips, Connie Joffee, Leslie Seratti, Kim Hegmegee, Dave Newman, Tom from Midway Rentals, the Hamari brothers from Marquette Wallpaper and Paint, Mike VanDamme of VanDamme Trucking, and Hiawatha board members Ron Larson and Jim Jajich, who kept the project rolling. So to speak.
For more about North Star and this project, please see the June 17, 2008, Marquette Mining Journal article.
Marquette City Commission approves Festival Tourist Park contract
The Marquette City Commission has approved our contract for use of the Tourist Park in 2009, 2010 and 2011. On May 27, 2008, the Commission voted unanimously to accept the contract as proposed, including price caps on the campsites and picnic areas.
Thanks to everyone who wrote letters of support to the Commission!
Thanks to the Marquette City Commission and City staff - especially the Parks and Recreation staff - and to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission who worked with us on the current and upcoming contract.
Update on Lake Whoa!-Be-Gone
The Marquette City Commission voted in December 2007 to accept financial agreements that should clear the way to rebuild the dam and restore the lake at the Tourist Park. The Marquette Board of Light and Power voted earlier to go forward with the restoration if the City took that step. Now it's in the hands of the Federal regulators. For the latest details, please see the December 30, 2009, Marquette Mining Journal. article
For additional information, please see these previous MJ articles:
December 12, 2007.
December 4, 2007
December 4, 2007, overview of public opinion
November 13, 2007.
November 13, 2007, letter to the editor from former mayor Jerry Irby.
Venue-related cost challenges
Public Works costs: Along with other Marquette park-using events, we are now being charged for all Public Works costs related to our Festival. The City previously donated some of those expenses in recognition of the money events like ours bring to town. In 2006 - the first year of the new policy - those costs were a bit of a moving target, with confusion about what Public Works tasks could be replaced with volunteer efforts and what pre-event Public Works jobs were specific to our event and what ones were routine maintenance of the Park. Thanks to the efforts of our set-up volunteers and the City staff, those issues were eventually resolved, and we believe everyone's responsibilities are better-defined now.
Permit fees: To host our Festival each year, the Marquette Parks and Rec department must obtain a temporary campground permit from the Marquette County Health Department. As the venue owner, the City applies for the permit, but Hiawatha pays the cost.
In 2005, the cost of that permit rose from the $40 that we paid in the past to a new total of $2,215. Of that total, the Marquette County Health Department charges $1,990, and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality charges $225. The permit fee includes the double licensing of the 110 Tourist Park sites already covered by the Park's basic campground license.
We were told in 2004 that the permit fee would rise to $1,000 in 2005, and, while we were stunned at the large increase, our board opted to incorporate it into our budget without complaint. We understand that all Michigan state and local governments face a loss of tax income and state revenue sharing; we want a strong health department for our County; and we did not want to damage our relationship with the MCHD. However, the Health Department ultimately increased the permit fee to more than double what we anticipated and budgeted. We made an appeal to the Marquette County Commission, which set the new County permit fees, but the Commission elected to leave the high fee in place - including the cost for the 110 sites already licensed. We are very concerned about this extremely large increase and its continued impact on our event.
Venue history
In 1984, the Hiawatha Festival moved from the Horsepulling Grounds in Champion, Mich., to the Tourist Park in Marquette. Changes in those 22 years have included more detailed camping rules, the end of our "discount" price for the park, and the loss of the lake and beach in the 2003 flood. Still, Tourist Park remains a pleasant venue for our Festival. Our 2006 base price for using the park was $8,838. We could pay as much as an additional $3,255 in staff costs, and we paid for a temporary campground permit from the Marquette County Health Department currently priced at $2,215 for our three-day event. As we always say, nobody loves Tourist Park like Hiawatha people. But if another site allows us to expand or improve the Festival for you, our board will certainly consider it seriously. We'll keep you posted.
