2018 Butter & Egg Days kick off this Saturday

Tom Gaffey this year’s ‘Good Egg,’ Steve and Judy Mahrt are Parade’s Grand Marshals|

What was originally our town’s Egg Day (a full one hundred years ago, this month) eventually became Butter and Egg Day – since by then we’d added cows to our chickens – and that eventually became Butter and Egg Days … as in plural … as in “more than one.”

As in one whole week of dairy-centric celebrations.

Though the 100th Anniversary Butter & Egg Parade doesn’t take place until next weekend, on Saturday, April 28 - after a morning of pancake breakfasts, bell-ringing, cow-pie tossing, and more - Butter and Egg Days officially begin this weekend, April 21. That’s when the annual Butter & Eggs Days Opening Ceremonies kick off at the Petaluma Historical Library and Museum (20 Fourth St.), from noon to 1 p.m.

The theme of the week-long homage to agriculture and history is “A Parade is Hatched,” a nod to our country’s very first National Egg Day, which inspired Petaluma’s own version of the celebration.

Activities will include the official announcement of the 2018 Good Egg, a designation given each year to a resident whose contributions to the people, history, and future of Petaluma are indisputably above average. That’s why this year’s Good Egg is Tom Gaffey, General Manager of the Phoenix Theater.

Eggs, general speaking, don’t get more good than Gaffey.

He’ll officially be named as part of the noontime ceremony, along with the formal presentation of this year’s Butter & Egg Parade Grand Marshals, Steve and Judy Mahrt of Petaluma Farms.

As it so happens, this year’s Butter & Egg Days centennial is not the only birthday taking place. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Petaluma Museum Foundation, a milestone that will be celebrated shortly following the aforementioned Good Egg/Grand Marshal event. At 1:30 p.m., also at the Museum, a welcoming proclamation will be read, a formal acknowledgment of past PMA presidents will take place, followed by a number of snacks, activities, artifacts on display and a grand dedication of the new Hammerman Bench. Named for educator Bill Hammerman, who passed away last May at the age of 88, the bench will be installed in front of the museum.

For more information and details on the above events, visit PetalumaMuseum.com.

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