As many as 50 wooden boats, ranging in size from 6 to 76 feet and dating back as early as 1928, will be on display this weekend for the annual Billy Creel Memorial Gulf Coast Wooden Boat Show at the Seafood Industry Museum Pier in east Biloxi.
The two-day event is a celebration of historic, antique, classic and contemporary wooden boats. The show opens on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $5 for adults; $3, students ages 13-18; and free for children under age 12.
Hourly sails aboard the Biloxi schooners “Glenn L. Swetman” and “Mike Sekul” will be available both days from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., with a rate of $15 per person or free for children under age 4.
Wooden boats registered range in age from a 1928 42-foot Elco flattop to a 1986 Stauter-built skiff. The Pan America Clipper, a 1937 65-foot Biloxi Lugger/Excursion boat, will also be on display. In most cases, boat owners will welcome visitors aboard to tour the restored vessels.
Exhibitors will also be among the show’s attractions and will include model boats, T-shirts, artwork, pottery, stained glass boat models, crafts and more. Children’s activities will feature painting on oyster shells and face painting.
An adult’s cast net throwing contest will be Saturday at 1 p.m. and the children’s cast net throwing contest at 2 p.m. with cash prizes awarded. Music will be provided by Hank Berumen.
Fresh fish plates will be sold, along with shrimp plates, hamburgers, hot dogs, shrimp jambalaya and refreshments. To see a flyer about the boat show, click here.
Elsewhere this weekend: Watch community leaders go “Over the Edge” for Habitat for Humanity at the IP, meet the spirits of Beauvoir at the Jefferson Davis Home, and on the concert stage, see Andy Grammer at the Hard Rock, Jennifer Nettles at the IP, and Marty Stuart with Connie Smith at the Golden Nugget.
See the entire weekend lineup
Annette Barhonovich: A researcher’s dream
If there was ever a question about where someone was buried in the generations-old Biloxi City Cemetery, the best place for researchers, family members and funeral home directors to turn for answers was Annette Barhonovich.
From her desk in the lobby of City Hall, Ms. Annette for the past 16 years has managed records on all interments in the cemetery. As a result, she established herself as a valuable resource for genealogists needing information about the 35-acre Biloxi cemetery, where there are 25,000 recorded interments, with the earliest marker from 1811, and thousands of others lost to time.
Today at lunchtime a host of city employees gathered to mark Ms. Annette’s retirement after 27.75 years of service to the city and its residents. Over the years, she served as safety officer for the city, as Emergency Manager with colleague and now fellow-retiree Frankie Duggan, and she was, for 10 years, on the mayor’s office staff as the citizens services representative, where residents turned if they ran into reams of red tape everywhere else.
Despite her “retirement,” Ms. Annette will continue to work a few days a week to help with cemetery issues.
“When you have someone with this vast amount of knowledge and ability, you don’t just let them go quietly into the night,” says Mayor Andrew “FoFo” Gilich. “Ms. Annette is going to continue to be a valuable resource at City Hall for staff and our residents, but now she’s also going to have more time to spoil her grandchildren.”
See photos from the lunchtime gathering
News and notes
Firefighters play with fire: Biloxi firefighters and their families participated in a stress relieving pottery workshop this week at the Biloxi Fire Museum and the Lopez-Quave Public Safety Center. To see photos of the men and women at work, click here.Â
City Council: The next scheduled meeting of the Biloxi City Council will be Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. at City Hall. To see the agenda and supporting documents for the meeting, click here.
Podcasting reminder: To hear the latest on the City of Biloxi issues, courtesy of the weekly City Desk podcast, click here.
