Festival Days celebration starts today

Havre Festival Days started today with the first of four days of book sales at the Havre-Hill County Library and a film festival starting at 8 p..m. in The Little Theatre in Cowan Hall at Montana State University-Northern.

Events again will pile up through the weekend including the parade down Fifth Avenue slated to start at 10 a.m. Saturday.

"We are ready to go, and we're going to have perfect weather," Debbie Vandeberg, executive director of the Havre Area Chamber of Commerce, said "that makes it even more awesome."

She said, other than organizing the parade and the Commercial and Crafts show, the Chamber acts as a facilitator for Festival Days. The other activities during the celebration are a collaboration of a multitude of groups and individuals.

"Like the saying goes, it takes a community, and it really does ... to make Festival Days just a fun weekend for everybody with a great variety of things to do," she said.

The Friends of the Library Book Sale, where donated used books are sold to raise funds to support activities at the library, started today at 8 a.m. and runs through 8 p.m. tonight. It resumes Friday with the same hours and runs Saturday and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m.

The doors and backstage lounge at The Little Theater open at 7:30 tonight for The Big Sky Documentary Film Festival.

Friday, the Steve Heil Memorial Car show runs from 5:30 to 9 p.m. in the Independence Bank Parking lot on Fourth Avenue, across the street from the first day of the Hi-Line Quilt Guild Festival of Quilts in the former VFW Club. The quilt show runs noon to 6 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday.

The 48-Hour Softball Tournament also kicks off Friday, starting at 6 p.m. at the Sixth Avenue Memorial Softball Field and running through Sunday at 6 p.m.

A Humanities Montana presentation sponsored by the H. Earl Clack Memorial Museum board, featuring Anne Foster's portrayal of Mary Long Anderson in "Alcohol, Corsettes and the Vote," starts Friday at 7 p.m. in Havre Inn and Suites on Booth Hill Plaza on U.S. Highway 2 West.

Some live music also runs Friday, with the alternaitve country band Best Westerns playing from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. outside the Tip It bar in North Havre.

A 60-some-year tradition kicks off Saturday with the Kiwanis Pancake Breakfast, starting at 7 in Havre Eagles Club.

The next event is the last Saturday Market of the season on Town Square, which Vandeberg said is usually the biggest market of the year with people coming to shop after the parade is over.

The parade itself runs down Fifth Avenue starting at 10 from Havre High School.

A special Run of Trains featuring the history of the Empire Builder of Great Northern Railway - and now Amtrak - will be in the Frank DeRosa Railraod Museum on Third Avenue from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

The Commercial Products and Crafts Show will run at the Holiday Village Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday noon to 5 p.m.

From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Custom Collision Repair on First Street East will hold its customer appreciation day, including a barbecue, car show and burnout, with drivers seeing whose car can make the most smoke spinning its tires.

The local Republican Party will hold a reeption with refreshments featuring local and statewide candidates speaking Saturday after the parade.

The annual E-1 Demolition Derby is slated to start at 3 p.m. at the Great Northern Fairgrounds, and a new Festival Days event, Rock Lotto, will run from 4 to 8 p.m. in Town Square.

Sunday, along with continuations of events, the Festival Days Fun Run/Walk starts with registration at noon at the R/C Model Flying Club field east of the Havre Ice Dome south of town where Fifth Avenue turns into Beaver Creek Highway.