First Estuary Festival set for June 1
NICEVILLE - The first Choctawhatchee Estuary Festival, a free family and community event for all ages, will be held 11 a.m.-4 p.m. June 1 at Fred Gannon Rocky Bayou State Park, 4281 State Road 20 East.
There is no park entrance fee for the festival, which offers fun activities, hands-on displays and environmental awareness. The event is hosted by the Mattie M. Kelly Cultural & Environmental Institute at Okaloosa-Walton College, along with the Choctawhatchee Basin Alliance at OWC and the Friends of the Emerald Coast State Parks.
The Choctawhatchee Estuary Festival will feature activities for the whole family including fish printing on T-shirts, crab races, hiking, seining for fish, kayak tours, and more. There will be informative displays about the Okaloosa darter, local snakes, red tide, and the Gulf sturgeon.
Other festival events include guided nature walks, kayak and canoe tours, a presentation and book-signing by local children's author Paul Lowery, and Native American flutist Jonny Lipford.
All activities and entertainment are free. Families are encouraged to pack a picnic lunch and come learn about the local waters of our estuary and the people living and working there.
For more information, contact the Mattie M. Kelly Cultural & Environmental Institute at (850) 729-6469 or go online to mattiekellyinstitute.org.
The festival is part of a two-day emphasis on the Choctawhatchee Bay that also includes a Mattie Kelly Environmental Symposium on the bay June 2 at Sandestin Resort. The symposium is a scientific meeting for researchers from academia, industry, and government.