Community Celebration

City of Madison to hold
‘Bridge Slide Party’
July 27 at riverfront

World record slide to be attempted;
time capsule to be buried

By Don Ward
Editor

(July 2013) – Madison, Ind., has a way with throwing parties, and it is getting ready to toss up another one July 27 when the community gathers at the Ohio Riverfront to celebrate the new Milton-Madison Bridge opening.

The “Bridge Slide Celebration” is set from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. at Madison Bicentennial Park, complete with live music, air show, showing of the movie “Cars,” a lighted boat parade, food vendors and family and children’s activities. Madison’s own singer-songwriter Rusty Bladen has written a new song called “Brand New Bridge” that he will perform during a music set scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. The very popular Doctors Band and the Madison Com-munity Band also will perform, in addition to an air show by Madison aerobatic pilot Cliff Robinson.
A committee of volunteers dubbed the Bridge Opening Team has been working since October 2012 under the direction of Andrew Forrester, the city’s Director of Community Relations. Although the actual sliding of the new bridge truss has been moved to sometime in late August, the Bridge Opening Team had to select a date on which to hold its event, regardless.
“We are very excited about this unique community event to celebrate the new bridge slide. This bridge project has been a remarkable construction project, and we wanted to make a big deal about it by holding a major community event to mark the completion,” Forrester said. “There was really no way to plan the party at the same time as the bridge slide because of the tentative nature of the construction project. But we will celebrate it just the same.”
Traffic was diverted onto the new bridge truss on the night of June 3. The new truss is in its temporary position atop temporary piers, but it will be slid onto the rehabilitated original piers once the old bridge has been demolished and removed, and the piers have been tapered at the top to accommodate the wider bridge deck.
In addition to music and other events, the city will attempt to set a new world record for the most people to go down a water slide in one hour. This will be conducted at Madison’s Crystal Beach pool, beginning at 4:30 p.m. during the evening free swimming session from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. At least 200 volunteer swimmers are needed to take part in the world record attempt, Forrester said. Forrester is asking that participants sign up for this event in advance, since there will be no walk-up registration. Participants can be of any age, but children must be able to go down the slide by themselves. Sign-ups are being collected from the city website – www.madison-in.us – or by calling City Hall at (812) 265-8300.
The Bridge Opening Team also seeks volunteers to bring in items to City Hall that can be placed in a time capsule that will be placed somewhere near the Milton-Madison Bridge and will give future area residents an idea of what it was like to live in Madison in 2013. The team requests that people bring in items or pictures that are significant or symbolic of Madison and that are three years old or less. Items should be small but representative of life in madison in 2013. The time capsule will be buried near the bridge and sealed, and not to be opened for 50 years.
The items should be small enough to fit inside a small box. They can be photos of people or things but should include identification written on the back. If they are photos of people, the persons should have some significant representation to Madison. To contribute items, drop them off at City Hall.

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