By Brett Yates
Rutland City hosts several well-known public events each year, such as its famed Halloween parade and the Chaffee Center’s Art in the Park. According to Alderman Michael Talbott, 2021 will add a new celebration to the city’s social calendar if all goes to plan: a whoopie pie festival, tentatively scheduled for the weekend of Oct. 9.
Talbott announced the idea at the Board of Aldermen’s April 19 meeting during a report from the city’s marketing committee. The committee expects the daylong festival to feature “a public dance, a parade to celebrate heroes working during the pandemic, [and] fireworks,” culminating at the Paramount Theater with a live rendition of “The Newlywed Game,” the classic game show that popularized the euphemism “making whoopee.”
A whoopie pie is a dessert commonly served in New England and the Pennsylvania Dutch Country. It typically consists of two fat discs of chocolate cake with a cream filling in the middle.
Talbott noted that two existing whoopie pie festivals — in Dover-Foxcroft, Maine, and Ronks, Pennsylvania — draw “8,000 to 10,000 tourists” annually.
