The weather looks great for the Hawaii Five.0 5K, which takes place this Saturday morning, July 30, before the Old Lyme MidSummer Festival. The race course, flat and very fast, will start in front of Lyme-Old Lyme Middle School, proceed past the entrance to Lyme-Old Lyme High School, and then travel down Lyme Street and McCurdy Road and back again. Lyme-Old Lyme High School’s Braiden Sunshine will sing the National Anthem just prior to the start of the race.
The Hawaii Five.0 5K is a fundraising event for Friends of Music-Lyme/Old Lyme, which is working to help defray the costs of sending student musicians from Lyme-Old Lyme High School to Hawaii this coming December, to represent Connecticut at Pearl Harbor commemoration ceremonies. On Dec. 7, high school bands and choruses from the United States and Japan will gather together in Hawaii to perform at these ceremonies, which will mark the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the beginning of United States involvement in World War II.
Among those school groups will be 105 members of the Lyme-Old Lyme High School Band and Chorus, the only school in Connecticut — and one of only two from New England — to be participating in the event. These student musicians will perform together on the pier of the Battleship Missouri, a World-War II-era ship that was engaged in the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. It was on the Missouri, in Tokyo Bay in September 1945, that the papers of surrender were signed by representatives of the Allied and Axis powers — formally ending World War II. The Missouri is now docked in Pearl Harbor as a permanent memorial and museum, providing a fitting bookend to the story of the bombing on Dec. 7, 1941, that launched US involvement in the war.
The 30th annual Old Lyme MidSummer Festival kicks off soon after the race is over, so plan to spend the day in Old Lyme. Visit www.friendsofmusicLOL.org and navigate to the 5K page to sign up or to get more information; or email [email protected].