PORT ANGELES — Melania Christine Burke may have been in town for only a day, but she is an instant hit in 150-year-old Port Angeles.
Melania was the first Port Angeles baby born in 2012, and as Port Angeles’ “sesquicentennial baby,” will be feted all year, said Cherie Kidd, sesquicentennial committee member and Port Angeles City Council member.
“She will be our celebrity baby,” Kidd said Tuesday.
Melania was born to Rebecca and James Burke of Port Angeles at 10 p.m. Monday at the Olympic Medical Center.
The Burkes — who have two other children, Maria, 4 and Nicholas, 22 months — began to get an idea that their baby had special significance Monday night, when the hospital staff mentioned that she was the first Port Angeles baby of the year.
They didn’t learn that she was considered a celebrity as the sesquicentennial baby until Tuesday morning.
“I think it’s pretty special that we live in a community that thinks of things like this,” Rebecca said.
Kidd presented the Burkes with a $150 savings bond as well as gift certificates and gift baskets from Port Angeles businesses.
Melania and her parents will be invited to take part in many of the events that will take place in 2012, including the Fourth of July parade, Kidd said.
The year 2012 will be one long celebration of the anniversary of the official founding of the city of Port Angeles, centered around President Abraham Lincoln’s signing of a proclamation that declared the Port Angeles town site, and the June 19, 1862, date when the city received its first post office and first canceled a stamp using a Port Angeles postmark.
The committee is working to introduce a sesquicentennial postmark for mail sent from the Port Angeles post office in 2012, Kidd said.
She added that a time capsule will be buried at the city’s sesquicentennial celebration, with plans to open it in 2062.
The 2012 Heritage Festival will be part of the sesquicentennial celebration, said Kathy Monds of the Clallam County Historical Society.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.
