LISBON

There will be a noticeable absence this year when the Moxie Festival parade rolls through town Saturday.

Lisbon’s signature annual event is celebrating Gina Mason’s spirit by renaming the parade in her honor. The Gina Mason Memorial Parade will kick off at Capital Avenue at 10 a.m., follow Route 196 to Main Street, and finish at North and South streets.

Mason, a state legislator, died suddenly last September.

“She knew everybody in town,” said longtime friend Brenda Rogers. “It’s going to be really difficult just not seeing her.”

Mason served as chairperson of the Moxie Festival parade for eight years. Rogers, friends with Mason since they were 11, also worked on the festival committee and recalled the amount of work she shouldered each year.

“You would think everyone would be happy and joyful, but that wasn’t always the case,” said Rogers. “She had a knack for facing something potentially explosive and calming it down.”

A member of the Lisbon Town Council from 2006-13, Mason served with Fern Larochelle, who echoed the difficulty of the parade job.

“It’s a fun event,” said Larochelle. “But, it’s not something everybody stands in line to do.”

She said action is what made Mason special when it came to public service. Mason didn’t just have ideas and sit idle, Larochelle said.

“She’s one of the ones that made a difference,” she said. “She would actually go out and do it. Gina got involved on multiple levels of the town.”

After her tenure as a councilor, Mason was elected to a three-year term on the school board in 2013. She was then elected to the state Legislature in 2016. And her connection to the Moxie Festival dates back further then her service as parade chairperson — she joined the committee in 2007.

Larochelle noted that Mason’s passion for the community came through in her work.

“She was a likeable person,” said Larochelle. “Pretty much everything she did, she did with the town’s best interest in mind.”

“If she felt she could do something to help or make something better she was willing to speak her mind,” added Rogers.

That included on parade day, Rogers said, noting that Mason knew where everyone was supposed to be well in advance of the parade. To avoid confusion and risk, she said, anyone showing up hoping to be added to the lineup that day was out of luck.

“If somebody tried to get in the parade on parade day she would remind them there was a deadline,” said Rogers. “She was adamant on things like that.”

Larochelle said Gina was often spotted with her family — husband Rick, who won election to her open state Legislature seat in November 2017, and son, Garrett, a state senator who recently in the Republican primary for governor — during Moxie Festival weekend.

Rogers said Gina was often at the festival from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. on parade day.

“The parade was all Gina,” said Economic and Community Development Director Tracey Steuber. “It was one of those things you didn’t know how much went into it until we actually started planning it.”

Organizing the parade is a huge commitment, Rogers said, adding that lining up vendors, sponsors and other early planning efforts take place nine months in advance of the festival. That’s a reason why members of the Festival committee wasted little time making the decision to honor Mason with future parades — a week after her passing, her name was attached to the event.

“Everybody on the committee thought it was a fantastic idea,” said Rogers. “I drive by her home and I still get that tug like how could this happen so fast.”

“That really came about quickly with the committee,” added Steuber. “They really wanted to honor her with this parade.”

For the many who knew Mason, the tribute may spark a memory of one of the many times they could have interacted with her, not just at the festival. It’s baton twirling in junior high that Rogers fondly remembered as she reflected on her friend. Much like the town, she still feels the loss, but she is comforted by the faith she knows her friend always kept.

“It’s just a great loss to the community and of course her being my friend its hard,” said Rogers. “She had a lot of faith. I know she wasn’t afraid to die.”

chris@timesrecord.com