Kim Smith Plans 12-Month Festival for America’s 250th in Presque Isle

1 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Jun 22

Presque Isle official Kim Smith has turned the nation’s 250th anniversary into a yearlong local celebration, opting for 12 months of events rather than a single day or week.
Smith said a quarter-millennium milestone was too significant to compress, and she has been preparing months ahead for hands-on programs tied to colonial-era themes.
At 68, the city’s grant writer and public information officer was already sorting donated feathers for a September quill-pen workshop and stockpiling embroidered handkerchiefs for an autumn doll-making class.
The effort stands out in a small Maine city near the Canadian border, where Smith is pushing past tight budgets, limited population and shrinking attention spans to give the semiquincentennial an outsized civic celebration.