BAY MINETTE, Ala.  — Mardi Gras season is in full swing, and Bay Minette will join the celebration next week with several activities.

Those activities include Mardi Gras Fest 2 at Halliday Park on McMeans Avenue, 10 a.m. to dark on Friday, March 4, and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, March 5.

According to Bay Minette Civic Club President Greg Mais, the location will make the festival hard to miss.

“It’s right on the main road through town,” he said.

Presented by the BMCC, the festival has free admission and parking.

The two-day event will include a variety of attractions, including a performance by Somerville song writer Leslee Scott, who will perform songs from her CD, “My Getaway.”

Additional attractions will include pony rides by Ponderosa Pony Rides of Bonifay and bungy jumping by Happenings in Leesburg.

In addition, vendors will have booths on hand, where they’ll sell art work, crafts, merchandise and professional services.

A variety of food vendors will also be selling such refreshments as funnel cakes, hand-dipped corn dogs, hot dogs, tea, lemonade, kielbasa sausage, onion blossoms, chicken on a stick, catfish, shrimp, burgers, french fries, coffee and soft drinks.

Plus, carnival rides and games by W.J. Attractions out of Andalusia are features that will kick the fun off a little early.

“The carnival is in conjunction with the festival,” Mais said. “But it will start on Wednesday.”

According to Mais, proceeds from the festival will go into the BMCC’s charity fund.

But that’s not all that’s in store for next week. On Saturday, March 5, the Bay Minette Mystic Revelers will kick off their Mardi Gras parade at noon.

“We’ll follow the same route we have for the last six years,” said Mystic Revelers President Wayne Jones.

That route begins at Bay Minette Middle School and travels past Wal-Mart and onto McMeans Avenue past the post office to D’Olive Street, around the Courthouse Square and ending at the civic center.

According to Jones, two separate themes will encompass the sixth annual event.

“The parade theme is ‘Six in a Row, Let the Good Times Roll,’” he said. “The float theme is ‘Mystics and Legends.’”

Five floats will carry that theme in the parade, which will also include the Shriners, truck bands, Baldwin ROTC, the Baldwin County High School Tigerettes, the Bay Minette Indeterminate School Dance Team and the BMIS Junior king and queen.

Also in the parade will be hillbilly clowns, Red Seven, Assault and Battery, WABB Radio, the Mobile Bay Bears and mascots, Bay Minette Mayor Jamie Tillery and Bay Minette Fire Chief Phil Bryars, along with fire engines.

According to Jones, plans for the parade have been under way for a while.

“It takes all year to plan,” he said.

The Mystic Revelers president explained that the idea for a Mardi Gras celebration in Bay Minette came about more than six years ago to add to the several other celebrations in Baldwin County.

“There were some civic-minded people who came together and decided the city of Bay Minette should have its own celebration,” he said. “We are the county seat.”

So city officials, business owners and the Mystic Revelers came up with a festival and parade.

“It had such a hug following,”

Since then, the event has grown such that BMCC now presents the festival portion.

“Greg Mais thought that would be an opportunity for the Civic Club to get involved and be able to help the community,” Jones said.

The Mystic Revelers president isn’t sure exactly how many people attend the annual celebrations, but he does know last year’s parade attracted a crowd.

“With the parade starting behind Wal-Mart, the crowd was two and three people deep on each side of the road,” Jones said. “Then it was four and five people deep around Courthouse Square.”

He anticipates an equally successful celebration next week.

“Everybody so looks forward to this,” Jones said.