Published: May 22, 2009 12:35 am      

30th year for festival

Historic tours, evening fun Friday highlights

FAIRMONT — The 2009 West Virginia Three Rivers Festival kicked off Thursday night with pageant royalty, high school marching bands and sports teams, the West Virginia University Mountaineer Mascot and the Pittsburgh Pirates Parrot.

The Grande Feature Parade of the festival rolled through the city Thursday night on its way to Palatine Park, the historic home of the festival. This is the 30th year that the county has celebrated the West Virginia Three Rivers Festival and its predecessors.

Serving as parade marshals Thursday were the North Marion girls’ basketball state championship team, and the honorary parade marshal was the Pittsburgh Pirate Parrot. The parade also include WVU Mountaineer football players Reed Williams, Jarrett Brown, Noel Devine, Keith Tandy, Ryan Clarke, Tyler Urban, Joe Rhein, C.J. Huffman, Chris Palmer, Donovan Miles, Ryan Nehlen and Jorge Wright, as well as Rebecca Durst, the new WVU Mountaineer mascot.

The Feature Band of the parade was the Fair-Barr-Mann-Ongah Middle School Band, comprised of students from Fairview, Barrackville, Mannington, and Monongah Middle Schools from Marion County. And serving as Honor Bands for 2009 was a title shared by the East Fairmont High School Busy Bee Band and Honeybees, the Fairmont Senior High Polar Bear Marching Band and the North Marion High School Husky Band.

The festival continues today as hundreds of Marion County school children will head downtown for historic tours. The NASCAR Subway Car will also be on site on the festival grounds starting at 9 a.m. today.

Entertainment for Friday evening includes illusionist Josh Knotts on the Palatine Park Stage at 7 p.m. and the band No Bad JuJu taking the stage at 8 p.m.

The festival continues through Saturday night, culminating with a fireworks show at Palatine Park at 10 p.m.