Celebrating Ceredo
#354 / Flood Time Capsule: 2004
Twenty years ago this week, The Flood was picked to perform the first concert in what would become a long-running “Sunday in the Park” series in the town of Ceredo’s then-new Jeremy Shoemaker Memorial Amphitheater at the Paul T. Billups Park.
It is a beautiful — and historic — setting. For many years, the large plot of land on High Street in the south end of Ceredo was owned by the Billups family, which operated a horse and pony farm popular with local children.
In 1947, Paul Billups began 20 years as Ceredo’s mayor, overseeing the town’s modernization, from paving the streets to constructing the city’s water treatment plant and expanding the police department.
Following Billups’ death in 1978, the town acquired the property, where Ceredo-Kenova Middle School and Ceredo Manor were built. The remaining six acres of the land were set aside for a town park.
The amphitheater opened in 2000, built with grant money and volunteer labor. It is dedicated to the memory of Jeremy Shoemaker, a middle schooler who died of leukemia in 1993. His mother was the music teacher at Ceredo-Kenova Middle School, and her son was known for his love of music.
In early 2004, Nancy Price, chairman of the Sunday in the Park committee, reached out to The Flood to inaugurate the series. “It’s really wonderful,” she said, “that the city of Ceredo is funding everything… It’s just really good that they’re willing to offer this to the community.”
The series continued once a month on Sunday afternoons during the summer and fall.
Press Coverage
The inaugural concert and its aftermath generated a lot of press attention. For instance, The Ashland Independent published two Flood-centric pieces before the show, one on May 9 and the second, a feature by Lee Ward, on May 21.
And following the show, two other local papers published photos from the event, on page 1 of The New Crescent and on page 1 of the Wayne County News.
Chuck and Dave’s Washboardry
A highlight of The Flood’s afternoon in the Ceredo park was when Dave Peyton put down his Autoharp and picked up Wallace the Washboard for a duet on Chuck Romine’s signature tune, “Coney Island Washboard Roundalay.”
Now, all of this was before iPhones and digital recorders came into our lives, so, alas, we have no recordings of the Ceredo gig. However, Dave and Chuck reprised their performance five years later at a jam session at the Bowen House. Pamela Bowen shot this video that evening:
The Choo-Chooing of Chuck
Speaking of Chuck Romine, we also got a bit of new Flood lore during the 2004 Ceredo show. The amphitheater is located near a railroad track, and that’s how we learned that trains aren’t huge banjo fans.
Every time we turned to Chuck and his tenor banjo and said, “Take it, man!” a train came along and drowned out his solo. He said later it was hard not to take it personally.
Click the button below to hear Charlie and Chuck recalling that discovery:
Chuck Is Always With Us
Sadly, we lost Chuck six months ago. He passed away at age 87, just 19 days after the death of Phyllis, his wife of 66 years.
But, of course, in the Floodisphere, our beloved “Doctor Jazz” is always with us. Pictures of his smiling face are in the room where the music happens each week. Meanwhile, if you’d like to add a little Romine to your day, tune into the Chuck channel on our free Radio Floodango music streaming service.
