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Visit www.healdsburgtribune.com for daily updates on local news views Visit www.healdsburgtribune.com for daily updates on local news andand views Our 157 year, Number 20 Healdsburg, California
Date, Date, 20202020
Wine Country Star Courtesy Healdsburg Museum and Historical Society
Twilight Parade Returns After Hiatus By Christian Kallen
VINTAGE A parade
participant from ye olde days. buildings, not only houses along Matheson and much of downtown, on the north side of the Plaza especially. “Everyone in town is either in the parade or watching it” is an oft-repeated testimony to the event’s popularity, and even skeptics are won over by the parade’s charm. And if every year the procession is a guilty surprise, it may be because not that much has changed: flatbed pickups with string bands, fire trucks tooting their horns, show horses and costumed re-enactors, and marching bands playing everything from mariachi to country hits. The route is pretty much the same as it has been for the last 70 years. The parade starts near St. John's Church on East and Matheson St. at 6pm. Participating cars, trucks and animal trailers go down Matheson to Center St. and turn right to go past the Plaza—and throngs of cheering locals, who anticipate when it’s coming down the street. The parade then goes south to Piper St., at the public library, then turns right and returns to Fitch St., where it turns south to return to Matheson. A brief jog takes it up to University, where the parade ends and its participants break up to go to Rec Park for the fair. Spectators are plentiful, and locals know to set up viewing chairs in the meridian between sidewalk and street at least 24 hours before the event. Though previously candy and other gifts were tossed into the crowd, this year’s rules put a stop to that, although marchers can hand out items, as long as they don’t induce people to get up and join the parade. ➝ Twilight Parade, 3
Faithful Friends GUNDERSON’S ‘BOOK’ OPENS IN HEALDSBURG By Harry Duke
William Shakespeare never had a play actually published in his lifetime. They existed, often in pieces, in hand-scrawled scripts and in the memories of the actors who performed them. If not for Shakespeare’s friends and colleagues’ efforts to preserve his work, high school drama students would have a lot of free time on their hands and community theaters would
HEIDI NEWFIELD RETURNS TO HEALDSBURG By Christian Kallen
Two days before the Twilight Parade and the FFA County Fair, the fair’s organizers will collaborate with the City of Sonoma to throw the first-ever HHCF Community Concert on Tuesday, May 24. Headliner will be Heidi Newfield, the country-music recording artist whose roots are in Healdsburg. Newfield grew up breaking horses on a nearby quarter-horse ranch and was a student participant in the FFA County Fair. She showed sheep, horses, dairy replacement heifers and beef steers throughout her 4-H years. “And that lifestyle lends itself to country music, it just does,” said the 51-yearold singer in a recent interview. Her own mother especially was a country music purist. “We had a lot of vinyl,” she continued. Newfield was able to convince her mother to get her a guitar and a harmonica, and she was on her way. Even as a teenager, she would go to Nashville to look for ways into the music industry. When she graduated from Healdsburg High, in 1988, she headed for “Music City” and met many of the artists who would contribute to her career. In 1996, she joined Keith Burns and Ira Dean to form the group Trick Pony—a nod to her rural upbringing. Their eponymous first album was released in 2001 on Warner Bros. Records and spawned three country chart hits, including the Grammynominated “Just What I Do.” Two other Trick Pony records followed before band members went their separate ways. Newfield broke out as a solo artist in 2008 with her first album, What Am I Waiting For. It included the self-penned tribute song, “Johnny and June,” an ode to country legends Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. It was a solid hit and sold enough to go platinum, just missing out on the Top 10 of country music hits that year (it was number 11). It was also nominated for have big holes in their season schedules. Playwright Lauren Gunderson (the Christmas in Pemberley series) won the 2018 ATCA/Steinberg New Play Award for The Book of Will, her historically-based look at the longshot effort to keep Shakespeare’s work available for the ages. Healdsburg’s Raven Players has a production of the play running through May 29. After being exposed to a butchered version of Hamlet (“To be, or not to be, ay, there’s the point…”), members of Shakespeare’s theatrical troupe, under the leadership of Richard Burbage (Robert Bauer), decide something must be done. Burbage’s untimely death ➝ Faithful, 3
Photo courtesy of Heidi Newfield
The unofficial kick-off of Healdsburg’s summer is just a week away, and it’s about time. After a two-year delay, the traditional Twilight Parade loops through town next Thursday evening as prelude to the opening of the Healdsburg Future Farmers Country Fair at Rec Park, a three-day gathering steeped in tradition and the authentic activities, sights and smells of animal agriculture. The local ag-centric county fair was first proposed in 1949 by Healdsburg High vocational agriculture teacher Steve Searcy, and it won enough enthusiasm to hold the first Future Farmers of America (FFA) Fair in 1950. The tradition of other local clubs and nonprofits having their own booths at the fair started that first year, raising money for their sponsoring organizations. Early parades and fairs almost always had a “Western” theme, and though livestock is always the centerpiece of the fair, there have long been other attractions—theater groups, a family circus, jugglers, games and more. The Twilight Parade, always held on the Thursday before the Memorial Day Weekend, will wend its way through town from 6 to 8pm on May 26. The cross-town procession has been an annual tradition since 1950, when the town had a mere 3,300 residents, less than a third of its current population. This year’s theme is “unity, community … ag is our glue in 2022,” though the popular annual event probably doesn’t even need an official theme. Very few Healdsburg events draw the crowds or enthusiasm that the parade does— its closest competition is the dawn St. Patrick’s Day “parade” around the Plaza on March 14, which has barely a tenth of the participants (although the engagement of the attendees is legendary). It’s easy to imagine the parade of 72 years ago passing by many of the same
1865 –May 19, 2022
Healdsburg, California Healdsburg, California
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COME TOGETHER Heidi Newfield tweeted that her upcoming concert is “the world's biggest reunion in my hometown.”
Even as a teenager, she would go to Nashville to look for ways into the music industry. When she graduated from Healdsburg High, in 1988, she headed for “Music City.” four Academy of Country Music awards, including best female performance and best song. Her most recent LP, The Barfly Sessions, Vol. 1, was recorded in Tennessee with Jim “Moose” Brown of Bob Seger’s band. Her tour in support of the album begins in June, so her Healdsburg date is a preview of the wider tour—and will be her first time on the road since her recovery from Covid earlier this year. She will perform with her current band, comprising brothers Dave and Kirby Barber and drummer Ronnie Yates. Their
next gig is two weeks later, in Florida, so her Healdsburg appearance should be a homecoming and a celebration. On her Twitter feed, she touts the concert as “the world's biggest reunion in my hometown,” and urges her fans to “laugh, sing and come together!” The event officially starts at 5pm, so there’ll be time to purchase food, beverages and alcohol from vendors before the music begins an hour later (bringing ice chests and alcohol is discouraged). In keeping with the country-farm theme, there will also be an antique
tractor display at the Plaza, a reminder of the time when Healdsburg wasn’t known for wine but was a leading hops producing region and had a reputation as “the buckle of the prune belt.” Despite being held on a Tuesday in the Plaza, this is not part of the city’s long-standing Tuesday in the Plaza concert series. That officially kicks off a week later, on May 31. At this point, the complete list of musical acts for that 14-week long series is still unavailable, pending final contract arrangements with at least one of the performers.
Are You Experienced? HEALDSBURG WINE & FOOD EXPERIENCE LAUNCHES Hitting the ‘Burg this weekend, the Healdsburg Wine & Food Experience is a three-day celebration of Sonoma County and world-renowned food and wines. The festival will showcase the region’s makers—farmers, growers, winemakers and chefs— alongside globally recognized wines from the greatest wine regions of the world, as it underscores the deep connection to agriculture that Sonoma offers. “Our goal with this
festival is to highlight the vibrant culinary diversity, amazing wines and sustainable farming practices of Sonoma as it relates to the rest of the world,” said Steve Dveris, CEO of SD Media Productions, the producer of the event. The weekend-long event will include special wine tastings and seminar discussions, barbecues, exceptional lunches, celebrity chef demonstrations and an expansive Grand Tasting, as well as a live outdoor country music concert featuring The Band Perry. The event will take place May 20-22 in Healdsburg, known
from afar to be a small and welcoming city, which has established itself in recent years as a top national food and wine destination. Events will be held all around Healdsburg, including at The Matheson, Montage Healdsburg and The Madrona, along with wineries including Kendall-Jackson Estate and Gardens, Jordan Winery Estate, Rodney Strong Vineyards, Dutton Ranch, Stonestreet Estate Vineyards and more. For more information: healdsburgwineandfood. com. General Admission and VIP tickets are available.