The 11th annual Curt Simmons Day and Egypt Memorial Park Festival was held June 1.

There were games and rides for kids, a cupcake-baking competition, face painting, a wide variety of foods, a basket raffle, craft vendors and a large car show with unique and antique cars. The car show, heralded as the sixth annual Pennsylvania Outdoor Veterans Wheels of Freedom Car, Truck and Bike Show, declared a number of winners in different categories.

Food options included Geakers Tacos, authentic Caribbean food, pork barbecue and other traditional picnic foods.

The festival also featured quality bands to entertain patrons under the park’s main pavilion — GirlCrue, The Higher Notion and The Aardvarks. Attendees danced to the up-tempo music.

Event coordinator Shelly Dorn, of Egypt, was serving in many capacities to help her team make the festival a success. Lynne O’Neill, Ryan Kramer and Kerri Crossing, Egypt Memorial Park board members and volunteers at the festival, were hustling around the event selling drinks and assisting wherever needed.

The festival honors a giant in the local baseball scene. Curt Simmons was a native of the village of Egypt in Whitehall Township. Simmons spent the majority of his career with the Philadelphia Phillies, where he was a member of the “Whiz Kids” team that won the National League pennant in 1950. Simmons is touted by the Egypt Memorial Park Association as Egypt’s “Favorite Ball Player.”

Simmons died Dec. 13, 2022, at the age of 93.