After two decades making memories, Dowagiac’s Dogwood Fine Arts Festival reminisces with a photo contest for the May 10-19 edition.
Dogwood Memories Photo Contest will help the community relive good times and have a say in who wins.
To connect with the contest, submit photographs online by April 21 through Leader Publications’ or Dogwood’s websites and Facebook fan pages.
View the entries and vote for your favorites by May 5.
Share the contest site with family and friends and encourage them to play and vote.
“I’m hoping folks go, ‘Remember when…?’ and share their photos,” said festival secretary Bobbie Jo Hartline. “Their first concert. Students meeting authors backstage. I’ve got an awesome shot of Ken Kesey in a beret. It will be fun to see how everyone’s aged.”
Dogwood delivers Pulitzer Prize-winning authors, Rock and Roll Hall of Famers and even an Oscar winner, though many relate to Shirley Jones as matriarch of the Partridge family.
Maybe your favorite memory was mystery writer Sarah Paretsky, the last lecture at Central Middle School on Friday the 13th in 2005, before Detroit native Jeffrey Eugenides christened the middle school Performing Arts Center.
Maybe it was the 1994 Dogwood doubleheader of John Updike and Joyce Carol Oates.
Maybe it was Frank McCourt (1997) or his acting brother, Malachy (1998), who led a rousing Irish singalong.
Maybe it was Sarah Vowell. Fred Fife of Ohio has been returning to the Grand Old City to volunteer ever since seeing her in 2006.
Maybe it was nouveau flamenco guitarist Johannes Linstead in 2003. Flight attendant Deborah Harry came from Los Angeles for his concert.
Norman Mailer not only took advantage of his 1997 visit to catch up with Muhammad Ali in Berrien Springs, he felt compelled to write a “blurb:” “I had a very good time in Dowagiac. Once you learn how to pronounce the name, your troubles are over. The audience was keen, alert, even witty and the sense of excitement that a small town is having a big-league festival is unique.”
Ali materialized in the Union High gymnasium, bringing Charles Neville’s band to a halt.
Who knows what else might lurk out there in photo albums or shoeboxes from two decades of sculpture, storytelling and dance events?
First prize is two tickets to Arlo Guthrie May 18. Guthrie returns with “Here Comes the Kid,” a tribute to dad Woody Guthrie’s 100th birthday.
First prize also includes a one-year family festival $30 membership and a $25 Wood Fire Italian Trattoria gift certificate.
Second prize is two May 10 tickets to author Nicole Krauss, wife of 2007 author Jonathan Safran Foer since June 2004; two Dogwood wine glasses hand painted by Ruth Reiss; and a $20 Zeke’s gift certificate.
Third prize is two tickets to storyteller Andy Offutt Irwin on May 15, two Dogwood mugs and a $10 Saylor’s Pizza gift certificate.
If you need digital images, free photo-scanning services are available at Dogwood headquarters in Huntington Bank, 207 Commercial St.
Check WHO kNEW Consignment’s store window on Front Street for a gallery of submissions.
There are two celebrity judges, 30-year City Clerk Jim Snow, a connoisseur of all things Dowagiac; and Dennis Hafer, Southwestern Michigan College digital photography instructor.
Hafer was a professional photographer for 38 years, including 27 as Blossomtime’s official photographer. His images have been honored by the Professional Photographers of America.
You, the overall popular vote, will be the third judge.