MILITARY

Navy Week coming to Port City

Wilmington will celebrate Navy Week from Tuesday-Sunday with appearances by naval units and personnel

Ben Steelman StarNews Staff
Crew members from the USS Constitution, in period uniforms, are scheduled to march in the Azalea Festival Parade. [PHOTO COURTESY U.S. NAVY]

While the 72nd N.C. Azalea Festival begins this week, Wilmington will also mark another celebration — Navy Week.

Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo is scheduled the sign an official Navy Week proclamation Tuesday.

No U.S. Navy vessels will be coming to town, said St. Davis Anderson, a spokesman for the Navy's Office of Community Outreach. However, a number of sailors and Navy units will visit the area, and some will join in Azalea Festival activities.

Among these will be crew members from the USS North Carolina (SSN-777), the nuclear attack submarine that was commissioned in Wilmington in 2008 alongside its namesake, the World War II battleship North Carolina.

Also on hand will be crew members from the USS Constitution, the frigate launched in 1797 and still maintained as a floating museum ship based at Charlestown Navy Yard in Boston. The sailors from "Old Ironsides," wearing uniforms from the early days of the Constitution's service, will visit area schools and youth centers. They, and crewmen from the North Carolina and other vessels, will march April 6 in the Azalea Festival Parade.

Steffanie B. Easter, chief of the Navy Staff, will be among the dignitaries recognized at the Azalea queen's coronation on Thursday at Greenfield Lake Amphitheater. She will also speak Tuesday to the Wilmington Rotary Club and tour the State Port and the Center for Marine Biotechnology at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

The senior civilian official in the office of the chief of naval operations, Easter graduated from N.C. State University and has spent 30 years in executive positions in the U.S. Department of Defense.

Navy Band Northeast will give a number of performances, including a live concert at 11 a.m. Tuesday in Story Park at the New Hanover County Public Library at Third and Chestnut streets, and at 6 p.m. Friday at Kure Beach Pavilion. The band will also march in the Azalea Festival Parade and will perform Saturday afternoon at the downtown Azalea street fair.

A number of local Navy personnel and Navy reservists will also be participating, Anderson said. Personnel from the local Navy recruiting district will join in a local Habit for Humanity building project, and representatives from the U.S. Fleet Forces Environmental Outreach will have a booth at the Azalea Street Fair.

Navy Week programs are held in cities throughout the nation to give citizens an opportunity to learn about the Navy and its mission.