Nautical Festival week comes to Rogers City

July 30, 2025 Editor

by Richard Lamb–Advance Editor

Nautical City Festival week brings many visitors to Rogers City for a host of special events.

All of favorite events and a few new events are planned for this year’s festival. A volunteer board and an army of community members make the summer festival happen.

THE FIRST day of the Nautical City Festival brought one traditional event and one new one. Below, the Sailors’ Memorial at Lakeside Park respectively started the festival. Above, scores of people enjoyed the Taste of Rogers City in the festival tent by sampling tasty food from a variety of local establishments. (Photos by Richard Lamb)

The biggest events are the grand parade set for festival Sunday, Aug. 3 at 12:30 p.m. and the last event of the festival, the grand fireworks display set for 10 p.m.

Grand marshal Brian Bannasch will greet those along the parade route, as will the new queens, Miss Nautical Coast Peyton Gohl, Teen Miss Moya Newman and their court on the festival float.

Bands are set to entertain Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at the big tent located at Lakeside Park. Jedi Mind Trip is the band Thursday from 8-11 p.m. with Bobbing for Piranhas and High Speed sharing time on the stage Friday from 8 p.m. until midnight.

Saturday’s attraction in the big tent is Tommy K and the Rock Show Band from 8 p.m. until midnight while Melissa and Jake perform Sunday afternoon from 4-8 p.m.

Many more activities are set for the big tent, the courthouse square with the juried arts and crafts show, Westminster Park with the car show and many other locations around town.

This year’s Nautical Festival Committee (NFC) has spent a year planning the annual event. Chairwoman Karen Spens and vice chairman David Regelbrugge head the volunteer group that includes seven organizations. The committee and an army of volunteers pull off the annual events.

The Nautical City Festival committee was organized in 1977 by the Rogers City Area Chamber of Commerce to include two voting members from six different community organizations. Using seed money from previous festivals, the chamber organized the Nautical City Festival Committee, Inc. by pulling in five area service organizations.

The stakeholders, and the representatives on

the NCF are the chamber (Regelbrugge and Karen Bailey), the Rogers City Optimist Club (Missy Bannon and Tricia Taratuta), the Rogers City Kiwanis Club (Jean Garratt and Jeanne Eberspacher), the Rogers City Servicemen’s Club (Casey Roth and Jeff Darga), the Knights of Columbus (Terry Tosch and Paul Bennett) and the Rogers City Area Zonta Club (Spens and Marie Lundheim).

This year the Rogers City Main Street organization is also part of the organization with Kaelie Fessler and Jen Winter as the voting members.

Volunteers are needed and welcomed by calling the chamber at (989) 734-4676.