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CENTER LEBANON - Organizers for Saturday's celebration to honor the founder of the historic Lebanon Academy and raise money to repair its belltower are hoping for a big crowd to help in both regards.
The event will remember the 200th birthday of Orin B. Cheney who founded the academy, and promises to have plenty of music, raffles, food and fun for everyone.
The driving force behind the celebration is not only to remember Cheney, a champion of education as well as civil and women's rights, but also to raise funds to repair a beam that holds the bell in the former academy's bell tower that is rotting.
Lebanon Academy Board of Trustees treasurer Shelley LaPanne said today raffles, a penny sale and other attractions available tomorrow will help to raise funds so the bell can ring once again.
She said the estimate trustees got to fix the beam and stabilize the bell and bell tower was about $25,000.
Cheney, who founded the private school in 1850, later went on to found Bates College. He was widely regarded as a champion of racial equality and women's rights.
The Lebanon Academy, located in Lebanon's historic district at Five Corners on Academy Lane, no longer has students, but it does provide space for the town's Historical Society and Bible study classes.
The celebration will run from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. and will also include a silent auction, craft tables, hamburgers, hot dogs and grilled cheese sandwiches provided by the Lebanon Ladies Circle and carriage rides with Steve Collins of Belgian Meadows Farm. There will also be guided tours of the academy and several musical groups, including the Musical Medic, a bluegrass band and Dan Woodman.
Some of the other groups involved in putting on the fund-raiser include the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Lebanon Ladies Circle, the Dorcas Society and the Lebanon Historical Society.
There will also be a showing of antique cars.
For more info call LaPanne at 603-509-0529.
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