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07.08.2026 - Volume 4, Issue 33

Page 1

IN THIS ISSUE

SPORTS

ARTS

LETTERS

A big change coming to MHS tennis

Singer Donna Byrne to perform at the MAA

Resident shares special moments with Scot visitors

Page 12

Page 4

Page 10

NONPROFIT ORG PRSRT STD U.S. POSTAGE

PAID

MARBLEHEAD, MA PERMIT NO. 25

NEWS FOR PEOPLE, NOT FOR PROFIT.

TM

JULY 8, 2026

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VOLUME 4, ISSUE NO. 33

FIRST WAVE 1

Rock n Row plans a special harbor parade to mark 20 years. Page 5.

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MARBLEHEADCURRENT.ORG

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Did you know Marblehead’s Post Office has been open continuously since 1775? Page 2.

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ON SOCIAL @MHDCURRENT

log 4 Police documents

loves 3 Who cornbread?

You’ll gobble up these interesting twists. Page 4.

another week of scams, crashes. Page 14.

summer can be 5 Why an especially lonely time for kids — and how to help. Page 5.

Five facts from this week’s Marblehead Current.

REV250

Fireworks, Harbor Illumination cap Marblehead’s REV250 celebration

TOO HOT

Record heat knocks out power, affects Arts Festival BY LEIGH BLANDER

CURRENT PHOTO / GREY COLLINS

Saturday night’s Harbor Illumination and fireworks display wowed crowds at Crocker Park and around town.

BY GREY COLLINS AND LEIGH BLANDER Marblehead capped off an unforgettable Fourth of July celebration of the nation’s 250th birthday with a dazzling Harbor Illumination and fireworks display Friday night. At least 1,000 people gathered at Crocker Park to watch the pyrotechnics and enjoy live music, while hundreds more lined the harbor to take in the show from beaches,

docks and other vantage points. “It’s so fun coming together as a community to watch the fireworks every year,” said Jace Rickards, who watched from Crocker Park. Added Erin Wilder, “They were so beautiful and an awesome way to end the Festival of the Arts.” Rain delayed the fireworks by about 10 minutes, but the wait proved worthwhile. The roughly 15-minute display featured hundreds of fireworks launched from a barge at the mouth of Marblehead Harbor.

At about 9:30 p.m., a large bonfire was spotted on the beach at the Eastern Yacht Club. “Bonfires are not permitted, with the exception of the Epiphany tree burning in January,” Fire Chief Jason Gilliland said. “The EYC was told they could have a cook fire on their private beach, and someone got a little over zealous and built it too big. It was situated on the EYC’s private, rocky beach, and it was a safe distance

A record-breaking heat wave walloped Marblehead during one of the town’s busiest holiday weekends, knocking out power to about 1,000 customers for up to 12 hours on Thursday and dozens more on Friday. Temperatures climbed into the upper 80s and 90s from Wednesday through Saturday. On Thursday, a “primary conductor overheated due to excessive current,” explained Marblehead Municipal Light Department General Manager Jon Blair. “This section needed to be rebuilt with new conductors and related hardware,” he added. “We called for mutual aid from our neighboring public power utilities and received additional crews from Braintree, Kennebunk, Groveland and Littleton.” Power was fully restored by 3 a.m. Friday. Crews worked a 16-hour shift, Blair said. Friday’s outage was due to “higher load, which is related to the heat,” according to Blair. “We need to increase transformer size for several overloaded services,” Blair said. Asked about the risk of future problems, Blair said Thursday’s large outage “was unique to that section of conductor, so I don’t see a broad or significant risk for a repeat. The new conductor we installed has a higher current rating than what we replaced, so that section should be much more robust moving forward.” He added, “We are using (Thursday’s) event as a lesson learned to proactively target more aggressive replacement. We

250, P. 3 HEAT, P. 8

MARBLEHEAD TRADITION

Arts Festival shines through scorching holiday weekend BY LEIGH BLANDER The 60th Marblehead Festival of Arts transformed the town into a vibrant celebration of creativity over the holiday weekend, drawing hardy crowds who braved a heatwave to explore exhibits, enjoy live music and celebrate the nation’s

BLACK CYAN MAGENTA YELLOW

»More festival photos on pages 3, 7, 9 and 13 250th birthday. Record-breaking heat and humidity, with real-feel temperatures climbing into the 90s and beyond, forced the cancellation of one

event: the Street Festival, where performers typically wear heavy costumes. “The Festival of Arts faces all sorts of weather challenges from year to year, and this year it was extreme heat,” said festival board member Joe Tavano. Despite the weather, Tavano said the festival was

a resounding success. “Our Champagne Reception was the best attended ever, even beating our record 2025 attendance,” he said. “And all told, there were over 100 individual events, performances and exhibits across five days FESTIVAL, P. 9

COURTESY PHOTO / SANDI GOLDFARB

A young boy takes a break while his grandfather, Robert Howie, reads the Declaration of Independence at St. Michael’s Church on Saturday.


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