Win a Trip To Forks and Help a Forks Resident

The Esme’s heart work has done some really good work. Here is their latest mission. Please help if you can.

Esme’s Heart, a 501©(3) organization whose mission is to accomplish acts of love with a heart like Esme, is announcing a raffle to “Win a Trip to Forks” for 4 persons. The proceeds will benefit Fork’s resident, Skyler Jewett, 7 years old & battling lymphoma, and the Foundation for America’s Blood Centers (FABC).

“We are so excited to be a part of this great chance for 4 fans to win a trip to the home of Twilight – Forks, Washington!” says Cindy Adrien, President of Esme’s Heart. “This is truly a wonderful, positive way the fandom of Twilight can help not only a resident of Forks but also the Foundation for America’s Blood Centers.”

The raffle will be conducted on-line from July, 2012 until November, 2012 with the winner of the trip announced on November 15, 2012 at the private screening party held by Esme’s Heart to celebrate the much anticipated last movie in the Twilight saga – Breaking Dawn Part 2.

Full details are here. Check it out!

Win a Trip to Forks!

Fanprizes is giving away a trip to Forks for one lucky fan and a guest.  According to the contest rules, this contest as been going on for quite some time but will end on May 29, 2012 so there is still time to enter.  You must be a resident of the continental United States and over the age of 13.  Here is a list of what the prize includes:

  • Round-trip coach air transportation for two (2) from a major airport nearest the winner’s home within the continental U.S. to Port Angeles, WA(airport, carrier and airline ticket class selected at the sole discretion of Sponsor);
  • One (1) double occupancy standard hotel accommodation for four (4) days/three (3) nights (accommodation to be selected at the sole discretion of Sponsor);
  • Transportation to Forks, WA
  • Tour for Two of Forks, WA
  • Twilight Prize Pack
  • One (1) $200 gift card

To enter, submit the form found here.  Good luck!  Thanks to TwiFans for the heads up.

Forks Looking to Make Twilight Museum

According to the Forks Forum. There is a committee looking to put together a collection to make a Twilight Museum in Forks.

A first step in gathering a collection for the museum is underway. Colandrea said an unnamed donor has supplied the funds to bring an arch used as a main prop in the filming of “Twilight,” the first film in Summit Entertainment’s five-film Twilight Saga series. The arch is being brought from Oregon and will be placed in storage for now.

Plans for the three-day 2012 Stephenie Meyer Day event are already scheduled she said, and will include a Twilight-themed film festival this year. Its main event will be a nighttime reenactment of the wedding of Twilight lead characters Edward Cullen and Bella Swan, featuring costumed characters.

The extensive collection of Twilight film props owned by collector John Henson will also be on display, she said. Henson plans to sell the prop collection following the release in November of the final scheduled Twilight film, Breaking Dawn Part 2, she said. Colandrea said her committee has first dibs on buying the collection, which she said could be a key part of a Twilight museum.

She said the target audience for attracting Twilight visitors to the West End is women 30-plus years of age. This demographic has expendable income and will spend more on gifts, accommodation and dining than teenage fans, Colandrea said. However, “they expect more of an experience” than teenagers. That’s where opening a Twilight museum would give them a reason to spend more time in Forks. “They need a reason to come to Forks.” The key to continuing to draw the Twilight visitors is publicity and social networking, she said.

See more on the Forks Forum.

The group is also hopeful that pending legislation would provide greater tax incentives for movie makers to film in Washington State. Currently it is far more economical for movies and TV shows to film in Canada and Oregon than Washington State.

Forks Keeping the Twilight Mania Alive With Twilight Weddings

The Town of Forks is looking at keeping people interested in the town now that the Twilight movies are winding down. They have an angle planned involving the weddings and they have purchased the prom arch used in the movie.

 

A new event this year will be Twilight weddings.

Thirty people can have weddings performed — or vows renewed — on three days in August, leading up to Aug. 13, the date Bella Swan married her vampire swain, Edward Cullen, in “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1,” which was released in November.

“The wedding will look just like the wedding from the movie,” Colandrea said.

Couples will be surrounded by wisteria, and ceremonies will use an arch that is a copy of the one used in a parody of the movie on The Hillywood Show at www.thehillywoodshow, an Internet site known for its spoofs of the “Twilight Saga.”

The ceremonies — up to 10 each day — will be performed by Colandrea’s husband, Nino, who is a non­denominational minister.

No site has been confirmed yet, though “we’re negotiating with a few people to get an outdoor site for the weddings,” Colandrea said.

Nevertheless, reservations are being taken now through June 13.

The fees are $1,595 on Saturday, Aug. 11, $1,795 on Sunday, Aug. 12, and $1,995 on Monday, Aug. 13.

The Twilight weddings would be performed after the June 7 effective date of a new state law legalizing gay marriage — though the date could be delayed if opponents are successful in taking the issue to the voters.

If gay marriage is legal by August, “we’re open to everybody,” Colandrea said.

For more information about the weddings, visit www.twilightweddingsinforks.com or phone 360-374-0358.

See more on the Peninsula Daily News.

Brand New Forks High School Opens for Students


Remember how we told you that the original building of Forks High School was going to be torn down due to wear and tear on the building. The principal had told us back in 2009 how they had to start heating the building at 3:00 am just to get it to 50 degrees by the time students arrived, and that they had trouble even getting it to 60 degrees. Students were wearing coats in class all winter, obviously not an ideal situation.

As with most construction, they looked at remodeling and rapidly discovered it was most economical to knock down and rebuild rather than to renovate. Initially they were going to keep the entire building facade, but that too proved impractical and outrageously expensive. So what the came up with was keeping some of the main entrance, incorporating it into the new entrance hallway, and selling former bricks as a fundraiser.

The Forks Forum was there for the grand reopening when school came back into session last week and this is what they reported:

For the first time in about 20 years all of Forks High School’s students are attending class under one roof. After years of planning and bond fund raising, followed by months of construction, the new Forks High School Addition opened to students and staff as scheduled on Tuesday morning, Jan. 3. Students mixed in the hall with construction workers from Primo Construction who are putting the finishing touches on the project.(new main entrance pictured above)

Terra cotta and brick elements from the entrance to the the original brick Forks High School building are now part of the interior wall entrance to Forks High School. In coming months a display of memorabilia from each decade of the high school’s history dating back to the 1920s will go on display in the hall leading into the entrance, an area to be called Heritage Hall. (pictured below)

See more on The Forks Forum including lots of great photos.

Just a brief plug for the school. If you are going to be buying Forks HS Spartan’s gear, please buy it right from the school rather than other vendors. This way the activities fund at the school gets the money and their students directly benefit!

Forks Prepping for Annual Stephenie Meyer Day

Each year Forks puts on a Stephenie Meyer themed celebration to coincide with the weekend closest to Bella’s September 13th birthday. This year they have their own website http://stepheniemeyerday.com/ Where they are rapidly filling in the details of the weekend.

The town of Forks has also made some rather necessary and practical changes to handle the influx of visitors. According to the Forks, Washington blog “The members of West End Business & Professional Association and Forks Chamber of Commerce have gone in together on two Sanicans placed downtown for the summer tourists. Merchants in the area of the stoplight had been complaining about Twilight visitors using their restrooms which are usually back in store rooms and not meant for public use. [Read more…]

Chris Cook of The Forks Forum Has New Book

Chris Cook is the editor of the Forks Forum newspaper. We had the opportunity to meet him a few years ago, and he’s a really great guy. He knows so much about Forks history, but what’s more important is that he’s a great storyteller. Chris has a new book out (he already has what we consider to be the best Twilight Guide to Forks). Check out the press release.

The newest addition to Arcadia Publishing’s popular Images of America series is Forks from local authors Larry Burtness, Chris Cook, and the Forks Timber Museum. The book boasts more than 200 vintage images and memories of days gone by.

Forks is a community rich in logging heritage. Situated on a prairie between the forks of rivers, the town sits amidst the beauty of the vast rain forest of Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula’s west end.

Settled in the mid-1870s by pioneer homesteading farmers, Forks’s name reflects its location at the confluence of the Calawah, Bogachiel, and Sol Duc Rivers. The town’s annual average rainfall of approximately 120 inches is legendary, making it the rainiest incorporated city in the contiguous states.

Forks is a hub for Olympic Peninsula visitors, drawn by world-class salmon and steelhead fishing and by the wonders of the Olympic National Park and the sea stack–lined Pacific Coast. Most recently, Forks has made a name for itself as the home to vampires and werewolves in Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling Twilight series.

Highlights of Forks:
• The pioneers
• Early logging years
• Becoming a town
• Transportation
• World War II and postwar

Available at area bookstores, independent retailers, and online retailers, or through Arcadia Publishing at www.arcadiapublishing.com

Bachelorette Party Twilight Style

According to the Forks Forum:

“Six Twilighters gathered from across the nation Wednesday, July 13 to travel to Forks to see the Twilight sites. The gathering of sisters and friends served as a bachelorette party in advance of a wedding planed for South Lake Washington in Seattle on Sunday. The group stayed in two of the Shadynook Cottages in Forks…The group hired Reggies Limousine of Port Angeles to transport them to and from the Fairchild International Airport in where they flew in from Seattle aboard Kenmore Air. The group took a Twilight Tour ride and went shopping at the Twilight shops in downtown Forks…”

See more on the Forks Forum

Old Forks HS Is No More

We’ve been telling you over the past two years about the struggle to save the facade of the original Forks High School building. Despite best efforts the facade couldn’t be saved, but they will be using the bricks for a display inside the new building when completed. The newer building that hosted the Summer School in Forks convention two years ago still stands, and has not been affected.

The Forks Forum has a run down on several key events surround the demolition from

beginning demolition

a graduate’s memories of hearing about Pearl Harbor at a school assembly

Cornerstone preservation and time capsule possibility.

Story idea via TwiExaminer

Forks Lives Up to Rainy Reputation in 2010

According to the Forks Forum:


“It was a rainy 2010 in Forks. The Forks Chamber of Commerce’s rain gauge, shown above on Thursday afternoon, Dec. 30, registered 130.36 inches for the year. Forks is the wettest incorporated city/town in the contiguous 48 states. “