Montpelier comes alive! MDCA name dies as new moniker arises
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Suzanne Hechmer of the Montpelier Downtown Community Association cuts into an elaborate cake made by a NECI pastry class to mark the 10th anniversary of the organization and to celebrate its new name: Montpelier Alive. JEB WALLACE-BRODEUR/TIMES ARGUS |
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By SUSAN ALLEN TIMES ARGUS STAFF - Published: August 21, 2009
MONTPELIER About 200 finger-snapping, toe-tapping folks gathered under the sunshine in Christ Church Pocket Park on State Street on Thursday, not just to jive to the rockin' groove of the Dave Keller Band, but to eat cake and celebrate the new name for the Montpelier Downtown Community Association.
And the winner is
Montpelier Alive.
Hilari Farrington, former director at Kellogg-Hubbard Library, was one of the five people who submitted the idea of Montpelier Alive among hundreds of ideas floated to replace the MDCA's cumbersome moniker. She said the idea sprang from a visit with relatives, who toured downtown Montpelier one Saturday when the Farmers Market, the Naked Bike Ride and the annual fashion show were under way.
"This place is really alive," one of her relatives commented.
Other suggestions not chosen included Montpelier Rocks!, Montpelier Central, Montpelier Totally!, Montpelier Smallest Capital, Biggest Heart, and more.
"I'm happy that we made it without rain," MDCA board member Pinky Clark told the crowd, just as Worcester meteorologist and forecaster Roger Hill was walking into the park.
The MDCA used the last of the summertime downtown Brown Bag Concert Series to celebrate its 10th birthday in the city, with a cake created by NECI Chef Adrian Westrope and his students that dazzled the crowd with its depiction of the streetscape of downtown Montpelier so accurately done that even a tiny Times Argus newspaper appeared in the rack in front of the Bear Pond Books icing-y storefront.
Across the sky over the city (over the top of the cake, actually) flew a plane pulling a banner reading, "Montpelier Alive."
The cake was designed to feed 100, and judging by the mob of children first in line for a piece, that guesstimate would be put to the test before the noon-time gala was over.
Families and folks of all ages sat on the grass, on quilts, on lawn chairs and on the built-in benches that lined the Pocket Park to watch the festivities from a little boy in a baseball cap eating a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich stuck like a lollypop on a pretzel stick, to seniors cradling grandbabies. Many had grabbed a sandwich, hot dog or cold soda from one of the nearby vendors. Others brought picnic baskets with lunch fixings.
Everybody was in motion as Keller and his band took to the microphones.
"Any of you feel like dancing, this is a good song for dancing," he said at the start of one funky number. At one point, Keller had the entire crowd loudly singing the old Ben E. King classic "Stand by Me," while the band stayed silent.
An emotional moment came when the MDCA presented its Arts Award to The Savoy Theater owners Rick Winston and Andrea Serota, who have put the theater on the market after 29 years.
"We wouldn't have made it all these years without the support of the community," Winston told the crowd, to applause. "So, thank you, all."
Other awards presented at the MDCA's annual meeting included the Founders award to Jay and Anita Ancel, the Individual Award to Anne Marie Keppel and the Business award to the Capital City Farmers Market.
Mayor Mary Hooper noted that the MDCA soon to become Montpelier Alive came on the heels of Montpelier on the Move, which was created in the 1980s, and followed a two-year study in the late '90s of how best to preserve and enhance what people loved about the Capital City.
The MDCA helped develop "this community that we love so much," she told the crowd.
sue.allen@timesargus.
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