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Event

Beaver Island Homecoming weekend, 1988

Also 1988 Beaver Island Homecoming · Homecoming 1988

Draft — sources verified, prose evolving

TypeEvent
Dates1988-08-12 – 1988-08-14
WithinBeaver Island
ErasModern era
On this page
Event
Dates
1988-08-12 – 1988-08-14
Kind
Celebration
Followed by
Beaver Island Homecoming weekend, 1989
Eras
Modern era
Concepts
celebrationcommunityheritagereligion
Within
Beaver Island

Summary

The 1988 Beaver Island Homecoming ran August 12-14. The weekend included the Bud McDonough Memorial softball tournament, a Saturday dance, a Sunday barbecue chicken dinner, a Basket of Joy raffle, and (on August 17, just after the weekend proper) a Las Vegas Night benefiting the Parish Hall. Citizen-funded fireworks were shown during the weekend.

Program

Dance. Saturday, August 13. The Beacon describes a smaller-than-usual crowd but a good time; musicians were Edward Palmer, Ed Sobie, Rich Scripps, and Dan Gillespie.

Basket of Joy. A raffle basket of donated beer, wine, and liquor, won by Laurene Adams, an Island resident. The Beacon calls it “the biggest money maker out of all three events,” raising over $2,000.

Dinner. Sunday, BBQ chicken with mashed potatoes, gravy, vegetables, and donated desserts.

Fireworks. Shown during the weekend, funded entirely by citizen donations; the report thanks a list of donors and singles out Richard Gillespie for organizing the display.

Las Vegas Night. Held August 17, a few days after the weekend proper; proceeds went toward Parish Hall improvements, “maybe a dishwasher.”

The Beacon states that proceeds from the dance, dinner, and Basket of Joy went “towards the general fund” without naming which body holds that fund.

Evidence limits

The report does not name a sponsoring organization for the weekend as a whole (the “general fund” is not identified), nor a venue for the dance or dinner, so carried_out_by and took_place_at are left unset. No softball tournament result is reported for 1988, unlike the surrounding years.

Open questions

  • Which body held the “general fund” that received the dance, dinner, and Basket of Joy proceeds in 1988?
  • Was there a softball tournament result reported elsewhere that this corpus does not hold?

See also

Sources

  1. Calendar entry: "8/12 - 8/14 Homecoming weekend & Bud McDonough Memorial Softball Tournament" and "8/14 August Dinner." The holding institution's portal restricts automated access; the archive holds a copy of this issue and can provide it on request.
    data1 · beaver-island-archive · beaver_beacon · 1988-07_Beaver-Beacon
  2. The held eighteen-page July issue PDF is paired with the canonical OCR source and confirms the Homecoming calendar entry.
    data1 · beaver-island-archive · scans · beaver_beacon · issues · 1988-07_Beaver-Beacon
  3. Reports the Homecoming Dance held Saturday, August 13, with a "little smaller than usual" crowd, music by Edward Palmer, Ed Sobie, Rich Scripps, and Dan Gillespie; the Basket of Joy (donated beer, wine, and liquor) won by Laurene Adams and raising "over $2000.00," called "the biggest money maker out of all three events"; the Sunday dinner of BBQ chicken with trimmings; and proceeds from "the dance, dinner, and Basket of Joy" going "towards the general fund." A separate Las Vegas Night, August 17, raised money for Parish Hall improvements. The same issue also reports fireworks on Homecoming weekend, citizen-funded and organized chiefly by Richard Gillespie. Read in the in-repo data/ tree. The holding institution's portal restricts automated access; the archive holds a copy of this issue and can provide it on request.
    data1 · beaver-island-archive · beaver_beacon · 1988-09_Beaver-Beacon
  4. The held twenty-two-page September issue PDF is paired with the canonical OCR source and confirms the Homecoming report.
    data1 · beaver-island-archive · scans · beaver_beacon · issues · 1988-09_Beaver-Beacon

Added 3 August 2026 · revised 4 August 2026. Recent changes

Cite this article

Beaver Island Archive, “Beaver Island Homecoming weekend, 1988”, https://beaverislandarchive.org/events/beaver-island-homecoming-1988/, accessed [date], citing Beaver Beacon, July 1988, calendar of events. (and 3 further sources listed on the page).

Last revised 2026-08-04. Fill in [date] with the date you read it — this page is static and cannot know that.

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