Ken Wehmeyer would like nothing better than to sit on a hill east of the Clinton dam and take in a bluegrass music festival.

“It looks like a great place to me, if there is a need for it,” the 77-year-old Lawrence man said Sunday afternoon as he and his wife, Rosie, sat on that hill listening to the Junkyard Jazz Band.

About 60 people and at least one dog gathered at the hill along with the Wehmeyers to dream about what one day may become the Sesquicentennial Plaza. Lawrence celebrates its 150th year in 2004.

The crowd came to enjoy refreshments, listen to the band play from a refurbished circus wagon and see the site blessed by Benny Smith, a Cherokee Indian who conducted a tribal blessing ritual.

Members of the Lawrence Sesquicentennial Commission are moving ahead with efforts to see that an amphitheater is eventually built on the 97-acre site the city leases from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Also included would be something detailing a timeline of Lawrence’s history.

“I hope what we put here will exist in harmony with nature and doesn’t detract from it,” said Clenece Hills, chairwoman of the Sesquicentennial Commission.

Hills said one of the purposes of Sunday’s sesquicentennial party was to give people a chance to come out and see the site in the fall as the leaves begin to change colors.

“I see a lot of things that could be out here,” said Mary Burchill, who heads the committee that came up with the plaza idea. “I wanted people to realize it’s not that far out here.”

The commission is paying for an architectural study.

“There is a lot of interest in an amphitheater but there’s no infrastructure and the city has no funds,” said Fred DeVictor, director of Lawrence Parks and Recreation. If all goes well a groundbreaking might be possible next year at this time, he said.

“I think a lot of people who go to South Park will come out here for things,” Wehmeyer said.

John Pepperdine, Lawrence, holds his 2-year-old son, Will, during a hay ride Sunday afternoon through the future site of the Sesquicentennial Plaza.

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