PANAMA CITY — Organizers of the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day events will be “honoring the dream” this year through several activities, beginning with Saturday’s march. The annual Martin Luther King March will start with registration at the Bay County Courthouse downtown from 11 a.m. to noon. The march will start promptly at noon, heading east on Fourth Street. The march then will turn north on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, east on 11th Street, south on Harrison Avenue, then finish going east, back to the courthouse. “The theme this year for the planned activities is ‘Honoring the Dream,’ ” said Sharon Sheffield, a member of the Advisory Committee for Urban Revitalization Equity, also known as ACURE. After returning to the courthouse around 1 p.m., there will be a short program with T.G. Cain, a recent graduate of Mosley High School, and Sahara Peters, a senior at Bay High School, speaking. A musical selection by Cain and Terrell Hill will follow. The march isn’t the only activity this weekend that will honor King, who was born Jan. 15, 1929. The Bay County branch of the NAACP will be holding a commemorative breakfast Monday at 8 a.m. in the Glenwood Community Center, 722 E. Ninth St. The breakfast, which is free and open to the public, will feature the Youth Council speaking about “Taking Stock of the Dream.” ACURE also will be hosting a festival from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Monday at McKenzie Park in downtown Panama City. “There will be entertainment from youth groups around the area,” Sheffield said. Sheffield also noted the festival will have vendors with food, arts and crafts, and one of the churches will be doing diabetic testing. ACURE’s goal is to bring people of all types to the event. “Our activities are inclusive of all nationalities, races, and colors,” Sheffield said.
