ROCKLAND – Locals and out-of-towners, volunteers and fairground professionals have all been working long days for the past week to get Harbor Park ready for the 67th annual Lobster Festival.

Mike McGuire, one of 36 festival directors, says that some have been working a lot longer.

“We’ve been planning this year’s festival since a month after last year’s closed,” McGuire said.

Although planning and pulling off the festival is a lot of work, McGuire said he enjoys it. His favorite part is seeing all the locals and out-of-towners who come every year. Many visitors, he said, come back. Some even come back to give their time.

“This year because of the Internet we have volunteers from all over,” he said. “California, Kentucky, obviously we get a lot from Connecticut and New Jersey. We have one family that makes this their family vacation, volunteering at the festival.”

McGuire added that this year they even have volunteers from Kansas.

The festival has more than 1,000 volunteer workers each year.

Elsewhere on the grounds, Shae Dunn, a recent high school graduate, folded T-shirts in the information booth. Dunn is one of this year’s Sea Princesses.

“Every girl wants to be a princess,” she said.

Shae wanted to so badly that she tried last year, only to be told that only graduated seniors could participate.

“I was right on top of it this year,” she said with a laugh. “I like being involved in the community.”

The first Lobster Festival was held 67 years ago in 1947, in Camden, in an attempt to restart community events after World War II. The festival offered all-you-can-eat lobster for a dollar, and lost money.

Camden and Rockport were not interested in holding the event again, so Rockland’s Junior Chamber of Commerce took on the Lobster Festival as a club project. In 1948 it was held for the first time in Rockland, and it has been an enduring part of the city’s culture ever since.

Since the beginning the festival has included a Sea Goddess Coronation (although in 1948 she was Miss Maine Seafoods), a grand parade and, of course, lots of Maine lobster.

Lobster Festival has been a hit locally and nationally for years, but not so long ago its fate was in doubt. In 1990 the festival was almost put on a year hiatus because of lack of funds. Rockland rallied around the event and the community got together enough money and volunteers to keep the festival going.

The festival supports a number of local causes. After setting aside the necessary funds to put on the festival next year, all surplus proceeds are donated. In the past few years the festival has donated to The Maine Lighthouse Museum and the Bob Gagnon Cancer Center at Penobscot Bay Medical Center. Money has also gone in the past to buying the city a new ambulance and paving the Rockland Public Landing.

All income from the children’s gate last year was donated to the Rockland Recreation Building fund for their renovation this year. All earnings this year will go toward the same project.

Since its brush with cancellation, the Lobster Festival has experienced national recognition and it remains popular with Mainers and people from all over, even Kansas.

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