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Highlands Today

County Readies For MLK Day

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Marching band members walk and play during the 2007 Martin Luther King Jr. parade in Avon Park.

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By Douglas  Carman | Highlands Today

Published: January 18, 2008

Organizers throughout Highlands County are getting ready to start a week of festivities for Martin Luther King Jr.

They have planned parades, picnics, prayer services and dramatic performances to celebrate the life and the work of the civil rights leader, whose protests and demonstrations were instrumental in combating the segregation that persisted through the South during the 1950s and 1960s.

The following is a list of Martin Luther King Jr. events taking place in Highlands County:

Sebring

* The 3rd annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Youth Celebration will begin Saturday, Jan. 19 inside Sebring's Lakeshore Mall, on a stage near JC Penny.

Organizer Robert Saffold said it will include speeches, singing, dancing and even dramatic re-enactments of some of King's actions and oratories during his crusade for equal rights for black Americans.

Church youth groups from Arcadia, Wauchula and southern Polk County will be joining the locals in an event that previously drew 300 to 400 spectators. Saffold said that it was not a church-sponsored event even though most of the participants come from churches.

This is a free event.

* A festival will be held Saturday, Jan. 26 in the parking lot of Club Waterfall at 723 N. Ridgewood Drive.

David Trent of Takeover Entertainment, which is organizing the Martin Luther King festival there, said it will feature a talent show, a video game tournament, music and multi-ethical food, along with a raffle. Trent said it was geared toward the community's youth.

The video game tournament is $10, the raffle is $1, and vendors there may sell other items. Vendors and talent show registrants can call Trent at 214-7711.

Avon Park

* The Faith Pentecostal Church of God in Avon Park will host a special "unity service" Sunday, Jan. 20 at 5 p.m., titled "Breaking Down Walls."

Cynthia Barrett, the executive director of the Family Christian Association, said it was a multicultural and multi-denominational prayer service dedicated to keeping Dr. King's dream alive.

* The Highlands County NAACP Branch will host its annual MLK Prayer Breakfast Monday, Jan. 21 at the Avon Park Community Center from 7 to 9 p.m.

Tickets for the breakfast cost $20. For more information or to buy one, call NAACP branch president Brenda Gray at 873-1138, Shawn Blackmon at 449-2313 or John Rich at 368-1191.

* Avon Park's Southside will have a parade and a picnic, including seven themed floats and a marching band.

The route will go up Delaney Avenue from Ernest E. Sims Street to Memorial Field and the line-up begins at 11:30 a.m. Barrett said the floats will be judged and the best three floats will get trophies.

A picnic will begin at Memorial Field after the parade, at approximately 1 p.m. Dancing, speeches and several games will be set there. A jumphouse will also be available for the children to play in.

Barrett anticipated more than 500 dishes will be given out. The food and the games are all free.

Lake Placid

* Highway Park south of Lake Placid will host a parade of its own Monday, Jan. 21. Its line up starts at 10:30 a.m.

Major Callahan, who is organizing that parade, said that seven churches in the area will send floats from the truck stop on U.S. 27 up Crestmore Drive to Vision Street. The parade will then turn south on Williams Avenue and end at the Action Revival Center.

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