Two fun events for residents, visitors Saturday: Mud Ball and Tupper Lake Adult Prom

by Dan McClelland

Tupper Lake adults have two events in the community to enjoy this Saturday evening.

Tupper Arts is thanking its many supporters here with the Return of the Mud Ball- a fun event that has drawn nice-sized crowds in the years it has been held here.

It’s the popular arts group’s way of encouraging its patrons and many friends to shake off the winter blues and come out and dance.

This year’s Mud Ball will again be held at Raquette River Brewing.

The very dance-able tunes of the 1970s and 1980s will be supplied in robust fashion by the talented six musicians of Tupper Lake’s “Night School.” So wear your comfortable, dancing shoes!

The admission, as in the past, is free and the first drink of the evening is on Tupper Arts.

The evening will also feature a raffle and silent auction, with proceeds to benefit Tupper Arts and all its programs throughout the year.

Mud Ball happens Saturday from 5p.m. to 8p.m. For information about it or any of the many classes, performances and exhibits sponsored by Tupper Arts, visit TupperArts.org.

A new event that same evening is the Town of Tupper Lake Recreation/Youth Activities Department’s adult prom, entitled “What’s My Age Again?”

For those here with fond memories of their high school prom and maybe their first official date, it’s sort of a trip back in time to a 90s-themed prom. The adult prom (18 years and older) doesn’t begin until 7p.m.- so there’s enough time to take in both events that evening. The prom runs to 10p.m.

The Adult Prom will be held at the Tupper Lake Country Club restaurant, under the operation this year of Scott Bell and his staff. Scott’s calling his new place “The Clubhouse.”

There will be appetizers and a cash bar, and music will be served up by DJ Max Nason of Saranac Lake.

Tickets have been selling well, reports Recreation Director Laura LaBarge, but people shouldn’t delay as only 200 tickets are available. The $30 per person tickets may be purchased by using the scan code shown on the town department’s advertisement in this week’s paper.

The idea for new adult prom event came from the town’s new recreation director. Laura explains that she loved the proms when she was in high school and attended every one in your years at Tupper High.

“Every once in a while I’ll be out somewhere in the community, and someone will tell me: ‘wouldn’t it be nice to have a prom for adults here?’”

Adult prom have been popular in other communities, she noted last week.

Laura said she’s hoping people will take in both events that evening.

All proceeds from Tupper Lake’s first adult prom will go to the town’s youth programs, which include youth sports and the summer day camp, to name just two.

She said she is hoping to create several “signature drinks” at Scott’s new bar- “perhaps with funny names to mark what she hopes is the evening’s nostalgia.

To help with the fundraising there will be a
Chinese auction for ten or so gift baskets- full of all sorts of goodies- that will be raffled off and awarded. A very nice, very expensive Yetsi cooler will also be given to some lucky ticket-holder that evening in a separate drawing.

As the popularity of the town’s various youth programs increases- with growing numbers- so go the costs, and hence the reason for this new event, explains Mrs. LaBarge.

To add a little silliness to Saturday’s event, the recreation director has arranged to have a do it yourself photo booth on hand to snap posed photos of prom-goers and their friends.

Many of the participants will be sporting the tradition dress finery of proms, while others many take a less formal approach, in keeping with Tupper Lake custom.

But the aim, according to Mrs. LaBarge, is to return that evening to the 1990s and its trademark music, dust off their old prom duds, and relive some old memories with friends.