YARMOUTH, Maine — The Yarmouth Clam Festival is a tradition that has brought families and the community together for more than 50 years.
This year's event officially kicks off Friday.
The festival got its start back in 1965 as a way to help bring business to the town. At the time, Barbara Fox was a 30-year-old mother of four and owned the Yarmouth Country Store. She was also Barbara Merrill, then.
"They were just starting to promote business and I was pretty anxious to have the business be good," Fox said.
Fox joined the charge of people working to get the festival off the ground. She would be in charge of the Miss Clam Contest. Fox said it was a portion of the event that really caught the public's attention.
"We got most of our publicity free when we put Miss Clam in a picture that was in a bathing suit leaning against a tree somewhere," Fox said. "It went quite viral or whatever they called it back in the 60s and, consequently, it just grew."
This year, Fox and others will be honored for their contribution to the festival as one of the parade grand marshals.
Watch the full story above to learn more about the history of the Yarmouth Clam Festival.