Archive for Holiday Events

This is a good year to be hosting the Miss New Jersey Pageant. With the Miss America program returning to Atlantic City there will be even more media attention focused on Miss New Jersey and that will be good for Ocean City. Ocean City has been hosting Miss New Jersey for 17 years. The franchise was secured during a meeting in Atlantic City at Miss America headquarters. Christine Wright and I attended the session to assure Miss America officials that Ocean City was ready to host the State Pageant. Wright ran the pageant for about five years and was succeeded by Michael Allegretto, former City Recreation Director, who was later asked to join the Miss America staff. Lou and Silvia Barthold then took over and Lou now runs the pageant alone... Read More

The auditorium of the Music Pier, Boardwalk and Moorlyn Terrace, will explode with color this weekend when the City’s Garden Club presents its 41st Annual Flower Show. The theme will be “Let’s Go to the Movies” with artistic design displays featuring entries like “My Fair Lady” and “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.” There will be an Arts and Crafts Division Celebration of the Cinema and the Horticultural Division will feature Roses, Orchids and a variety of plants. The show was started by the late Ocean City artist and businessman James Penland in cooperation with the City’s Public Relations Office. Penland contacted the Garden Club as he knew there could be no show without the Club’s leadership. The event runs from Fri. May 31st to Sun. June 2. Show hours are... Read More

This Weekend plus Monday Friday, May 24 will be an historic and hysterical day in Ocean City. The Ocean City Tabernacle will re-open the Moorlyn Theatre on Friday and show movies seven days a week until the fall. The Theatre will also offer live entertainment starting July 1. That’s the Historical part. Also on Friday, the Business Person’s Plunge will celebrate its tenth anniversary. This event features business folks dressed formally and toting briefcases and flags. They will smart step into the ocean accompanied by mascots, costumed characters and just plain “characters” to the strains of Pomp and Circumstance. This is semi inspiring but mostly hysterical. John Walton, director of the Parade, estimates that over 100 will participate. He reported the latest entries to be Bangles and Bows with their mascot Princess Bangles,... Read More

This resort’s 10th annual Business Persons Plunge will kick off the Memorial Day Weekend in Ocean City, notes realtor, John Walton, a founder of the event and its director. The popular plunge is the way City merchants and organizations celebrate the coming of a new season. In dramatic fashion, dressed in business suits and sporting other unusual costumes, they smart step into the sea. This year they will march to the tune of Pomp and Circumstance played by the Ocean City High School Band standing on the sidelines. The action begins at noon on Fri., May 24 on the sands opposite the Music Pier, Boardwalk and Moorlyn Terrace. Walton is enthusiastic about the event declaring there will be a record number of participants on the 24th. “Future business students from Ocean City High School... Read More

In 1983 Ocean City was looking for events to bolster tourism in the Spring. We had tried boat shows in the downtown that weren’t particularly successful. Then I happened to be driving in the north end of the City and noticed that residents were planning to celebrate repairs to their street with a neighborhood block party. When I returned to the office, I asked Jean Mimnaugh, my co-worker, what she thought about having a block party in the downtown with entertainment and food, etc. Jean then provided the key to the long term success of the event. “Crafters,” she said, you should have crafters, “and I know a lot of them.” Thirty years later, we have over 400 crafters, plus downtown merchants’ tables, plus food, entertainment, pony rides for the children and... Read More

History was made in Ocean City on March 13, 1975. It was a chilly winter’s day, kind of miserable really. But that didn’t stop Martin Z. Mollusk from creeping onto the 9th St. Beach and creating an Ocean City tradition. Mayor B. Thomas Waldman and Commissioner Marilyn Moore were present to witness that Martin did, in fact, see his shadow despite considerable fog and thus summer would come one week early to this family resort. Following his successful outing, Martin conferred with the community leaders through his spiritual advisor and chef, Mark Soifer, the only person who can communicate with the crustacean. He asked, actually he demanded, that the ceremony be moved to the first Thursday in May when the weather was more conducive to his sensitive, tropical upbringing. They readily agreed... Read More