As repairs at Cassidy Park enter their final phase after the devastating March 11 flooding, city groups are once again making plans to hold events at the park.

Among those groups is the Bogalusa Cassidy Park Museums, a group that was based in the park prior to the flooding. The museums, representing Native American and pioneer history, aren’t returning to the park, but this week the group announced it would hold its annual barbecue and cook-off contest at the park Saturday, Oct. 29.

This is the 10th year the museums have held the contest.

The contest had been slated for March 19, but the flooding changed those plans.

The barbecue contest is a fundraiser for the museums, now located on Avenue F.

Robin Day, the vice president of the museum and the chairman of the barbecue contest, said more details aren’t yet available because she hasn’t met with the new barbecue cook-off committee.

“We just made a date at the board meeting Tuesday night,” Day said. “So we’re just in the restaging and getting prepared phase.”

Day said she doesn’t yet have registration forms, but she expects to get them soon. In the meantime, Day said anyone who would like to cook can email her at robinsnest659@yahoo.com and she will send the information out as soon as possible.

Beyond that, Day said she’s just happy to hold an event at the park. Although it’s not clear yet when the park might re-open, Cassidy has been closed to the public since March.

“You never know how precious it is until you don’t have it,” she said.

In other museum matters, Day is asking anyone in the community who was a member of the Camp Fire program to donate or loan memorabilia.

“We’re in the process of pulling together a campfire exhibit that will be on display at the Washington Parish Library in August,” Day said. “Anybody that has any Camp Fire memorabilia, if they would like to donate it for the exhibit, they can contact Lorraine Bourn.”

Bourn is the museums’ director. The new phone number for the museum is 985-241-5498.

Bourn said any memorabilia would be welcome, including written histories with dates. In addition, Bourn said the museums are collecting old photos.

“People who have old photos that relate to the history of Bogalusa, put them on a disc if possible or the museum will scan them,” she said. “We want to make a nice photo library for people to do their research.”