Cortez folk arts festival is Saturday

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By Cindy Lane | sun staff writer

CORTEZ – Mullet, music and more is on the menu at the Fifth Annual Cortez Folk Arts Festival on Saturday, Nov. 19 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Florida Maritime Museum at Cortez.

The Cortez Village Historical Society will provide mullet dinners with sweet tea and all the fixin’s, and Jose’s Real Cuban Food will offer Cuban dishes, with Tyler’s Ice Cream sponsoring an ice cream eating contest for children and adults.

Musical entertainment includes the Myakka Blue Grass Band, Brain Smalley, the Burke Brothers of Have Gun Will Travel, Soupy Davis and Friends and the Main Hatch Motleys sea shanty singers.

More than 20 arts and crafts vendors will exhibit their wares. New this year, the Cortez Post Office will have a booth selling Disney Forever stamps, with characters from "Ratatouille," "Cars," "Toy Story" and other Disney favorites, along with holiday stamps in books of 20 for $8.80 each.

Disney artist Al Konetzni will sign autographs and has donated art work to be raffled to benefit the museum. Frames were donated by Picture This, 8615 Cortez Road W.

Visitors can take guided tours of the museum, which features new displays, the FISH Preserve and the new boat shop where traditional Florida wooden boats are built.

Cortez photographer Richard Estabrook also will be on hand to take free family and group photographs in the museum’s Secret Garden.

The museum is located at 4415 119th St. W. in Cortez. Parking is available in Cortez village and just east of the village off Cortez Road in the FISH Preserve.

Admission is $2 for adults and free for children 12 and under.

The event is sponsored by First America Bank and co-sponsored by the Florida Institute for Saltwater Heritage (FISH), Manatee Clerk of Circuit Courts Chips Shore and the Cortez Village Historical Society.

For more information, contact Ted Adams at Ted.Adams@ManateeClerk.com or call 941-708-6121.