ST. MARYS, OHIO -- The St. Marys Blues Guild is resurrecting a local tongue-in-cheek legend, and putting it to work.
More than 60 years ago, a loosely-knit organization known as the “Hunters, Trappers and Traders” operated on and around Lake St. Marys. Fred “Midget” Longsworth was their correspondent to the papers and “Vice President and Cook,” and he wrote a few rambling articles about their rare encounters with a mysterious lake monster.
Described by “Midget” in 1944 as “a big critter, elongated, something like an alligator and yet different; something like a dinosaur of prehistoric days, but different,” the beast breathed smoke from its nostrils and “struck terror into the old HT&T and left them totally unprepared to defend their rights when pies and sandwiches disappeared almost from under their noses.”
The late Evening Leader columnist Hal Miller kept the story alive from the '70s into the '90s, long after the “Hunters, Trappers and Traders” had themselves passed into legend. Miller often wrote of local folklore and talk around town with a wry wit – calling, for instance, the Celina Lighthouse “that Coke bottle on the lake” -- and one of Hal's favorite subjects was the HT&T's fabled creature, known as the Hoedag.
With this press release, the St. Marys Blues Guild is adopting the Hoedag (or, perhaps, one of the original Hoedag's descendants), as the official mascot of the Riverside Bluesfest, held annually on Saturday of Labor Day weekend at K.C. Geiger Park.
“It's a good match,” said Riverside Bluesfest Operations Chairman Chris Botkin. “The blues is made up of equal parts mystery and magic, loneliness and lunacy -- like a nearly forgotten monster. The Hoedag is a St. Marys legend that no group since the 'Hunters, Trappers and Traders' has claimed, and he'll make a great spokescreature for the Riverside Bluesfest.”
If it could talk, that is.
Riverside Bluesfest General Chairman Rees McKee agrees with Botkin on one point. “The Hoedag idea is lunacy, all right,” McKee said. “But it's not costing us anything, so I suppose it can't hurt.”
A preliminary sketch of the new-millennium monster has been roughed out, based on old newspaper accounts and wild-ass guesswork about what a Hoedag in his terrible twos would look like. Without further ado, the St. Marys Blues Guild is happy to introduce the official mascot of the second Riverside Bluesfest: Bo the Hoedag.
In cooperation with the St. Marys Blues Guild, Chicago, Illinois, animator and digital designer Philip Carrera created the featured Hoedag image. See more of Philip's work on his web site: www.grannygoodguns.com.
The 2008 Riverside Bluesfest will be held on Saturday, August 30, 2008, at “Riverside” in K.C. Geiger Park. Tickets will be sold online through TicketWeb.com and will be available in select St. Marys, Ohio and area stores. Additional ticket and artist information TBA.
The Riverside Bluesfest is a fund raising activity of the K.C. Geiger Park Improvement Committee, a private, non-profit organization devoted to the perpetual care of St. Marys, Ohio's largest recreational facility. Proceeds of the Riverside Bluesfest go into the K.C. Geiger Park Fund, a component fund of the St. Marys Community Foundation, which is an IRS-designated public charity. The St. Marys Blues Guild is the Riverside Bluesfest planning and management committee. Learn more at www.stmarysblues.com.
For more information on the 2008 Riverside Bluesfest, visit www.stmarysblues.com.
