The Icon, in cooperation with Shannon Theatre, is happy to launch this year's Blaze on Friday afternoon.
Bluffton Icon sponsors two free showings of "It's a Wonderful Life," the 1946 classic featuring the all-star cast of James Stewart, Donna Reed and Lionel Barrymore at the Shannon Theatre.
The free showings are at 1:30 and 4 p.m. The showings are also part of the Shannon Theatre's Customer Appreciation Weekend.
One popular group and two new performers will entertain the Blaze of Lights crowd on Saturday in downtown Bluffton. The performance stage is at the corner of Main and Cherry streets.
Once the Blaze parade ends – estimated to end about 6 p.m. – musical entertainment takes the Blaze stage until this year’s “switch hitter” turns on the Ream holiday folk art light display.
Saturday’s entertainment follows:
• Bluffton High School show choir, directed by Kara Zink. This group is a popular Blaze entertainer year after year.
Saturday's 31st annual Blaze of Lights offers several opportunities to "eat locally" according to the Bluffton Area Chamber of Commerce. Here's a lists of businesses offering food:
Bluffton Lions Club Foundation: Chicken barbecue, 4-7 p.m. Drive up behind the Dollar Store parking lot. Eat in at tables on the lower level of Bluffton Presbyterian Church. See a Lions member for tickets or call Greg Denecker at 419-358-5901.
That’s the amount of rain recorded by Guy Verhoff, Pandora weather observer on Saturday, Nov. 18. It caused flooding in Bluffton, which included closing of East College Avenue and Bentley Road north of Bluffton.
The photos here show the area of the old baseball diamond field below Musselman Library on campus.
Bluffton’s Blaze of Lights began in the 1930s with three lighted, painted deer on the Ream family farm.
In 2017, thousands of visitors are expected on Saturday, Nov. 25, to see the lighting of some 200 folk art pieces and enjoy the village’s 31st annual Christmas festival.
The Blaze of Lights parade begins at 5 p.m., but entries assemble at 4 p.m. and viewers start to gather well in advance.
A volunteer coalition of Bluffton residents will post the Ream Holiday Folk Art Display cutouts on the Presbyterian Church lawn starting at 3 p.m. on Friday, according to Lynda Best, who is working on the project.
The set-up is part of the Bluffton Cultural Affairs Committee, but with last January’s retirement by Terry Mullenhour, who chairs the committee, no replacement was made by the village.
“Because of a forecast of 100 percent chance of rain on Saturday, we will start at 3 p.m. on Friday,” she told The Icon. “We will try to finish Saturday, weather permitting.”
