WCCAC celebrates 50th year with new season

IAN PUGH
Posted 6/7/17

HONESDALE, PA — The Wayne County Creative Arts Council is gearing up for another summer season of outdoor music, but as concertgoers prepare their blankets and chairs, they might find something …

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WCCAC celebrates 50th year with new season

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HONESDALE, PA — The Wayne County Creative Arts Council is gearing up for another summer season of outdoor music, but as concertgoers prepare their blankets and chairs, they might find something else to celebrate. This year marks the organization’s 50th anniversary, and in true WCCAC fashion, they’re celebrating with a night of music and history in Honesdale’s Central Park. 

On Monday, June 12, the Northeasters Barbershop Chorus will perform a selection of music that reflects upon those 50 years, and Mark Zimmer will narrate a presentation about the history of the council. The WCCAC website (https://wccac.wordpress.com/about/) provides a preliminary crash course: it began in 1967 as a committee assigned to direct a music festival for the Honesdale Chamber of Commerce; the committee was headed by Arthur Fasshauser, the founder of Art’s Apparel Shop (now Art’s for Him and Her Too) on Main Street. Fasshauser became the president of the Council when it was designated a non-profit organization in 1973. In addition to the history lesson, the anniversary celebration will also include a tribute to the Council’s program director, Mae Figura, who planned this year’s events before passing away in January.

Throughout the years, the Council has made it a point to host many local acts and personalities, some of which have been associated with the organization for decades. This includes the Wayne Choralaires (performing June 26), who will also be celebrating their 50th year. “For their first concert the audience was seated on the banks of the Stourbridge Elementary School,” the organization mentions. “Art Fasshauser’s dream of a festival of summer events began with that concert.”

Although the concerts have long been a great success, they have just as long required effort and dedicated passion from the council. “We meet and we discuss and we organize,” says Karen Gravel, a WCCAC board member. “We are all volunteers, and we are all, for the most part, there on every Monday and every Thursday. Certainly with exceptions… family vacations and things that takes each of us away from town at various times. But there’s the concession stand that needs to be run, and there’s a free-will offering conducted at intermission, and there’s comments at the beginning, and just organizing it, that requires all of us to go beyond just meeting and preparing and discussing in that way—to the reality of being there, and making sure that each of the evenings happens successfully.”

The WCCAC 50th anniversary celebration will take place on Monday, June 12 at Honesdale’s Central Park, 7:30 p.m. Further events will take place at the same time and place every Monday and Thursday through July 27, with the exception of its Independence Day celebration, which will take place on Sunday, July 2 at 6:30 p.m. Guests throughout the summer will include the Jazz Assassins (June 19), the Old Time Fiddlers (July 20) and the Bill Arnold Band (July 27). Rain locations will be announced on WDNH Radio. For more information about the WCCAC and upcoming events, visit its Facebook page at www.facebook.com/groups/WayneCreativeArts/ or The River Reporter’s events calendar at riverreporter.com/calendar-events.

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