OSU band to perform at Genoa homecoming festivities

5/26/2009

After a year's absence, the Genoa Homecoming is back this weekend, and the Ohio State University Spring Athletic Band will help kick off the village's two-day festivities.

The OSU band will be featured in the homecoming parade, which starts at 6:30 p.m. Friday at 13th and Main streets. Genoa High School athletes will serve as grand marshals.

The parade will wind through downtown Genoa and end at Veterans Park, where the OSU band will perform with local high school marching bands on the lawn of Historic Town Hall. Other Friday highlights include bingo, a silent auction, and food vendors.

Genoa Homecoming continues downtown Saturday with a 5K run, children's activities, and flower and herb day at the farmer's market. A car show, street fair, art show, and other activities also will take place Saturday.

A steak cook-off - with local firefighters and others serving as chefs - will be held from noon to 2 p.m. Saturday, and dinners also will be served from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday. Steak dinner tickets are $18 if bought prior to Saturday and $20 on the day of the dinner.

Square dancing will be held in front of the fire station at 7 p.m. Saturday.

This year's festivities are being sponsored by the Genoa Merchants Association, which took over from the Allen-Clay Joint Fire District after the event was canceled last year. The fire department started sponsoring homecoming as a fundraiser in the mid-1970s but had to stop because of staffing and financial concerns.

Genoa American Legion Post 324 held the village's first Homecoming Parade in 1946 to honor soldiers returning from World War II.