Turns out there is an annual Boat Parade in York! We found out about it too late to enter, but we just had to check it out. So we went to Bantz park to size up our competition for next year. Unfortunately, hurricane Irene brought unfavorable weather, and the boat parade was canceled. However, we spent a few minutes chatting with the organizers of the event, and they asked us to wait around a bit because a reporter was on his way. So when a story ran that Sunday about Yorkfest, there was a special article about Alicia’s Boat. This was the first little bit of boat publicity.

Among those who had showed up to Bantz park to watch were the Daugherty family from Dover and Abby Householder, a friend of the family.

Last weekend, the group christened a pontoon boat they had built — invented, actually — in Pinchot Lake. They named it Alicia Marie for Alicia Marie Daugherty, Karl and Diana Daugherty’s 21-year-old daughter, who died in a June 3 car accident in Selinsgrove….

Alicia, who’d been an environmental sciences major at Messiah College, and Abby, who attends York College, came up with the idea. On a break from school, they heard some of their friends talk about how they’d attempted to build their own boat and failed.

Soon they were collecting bottles wherever they could find them. “I remember driving with (Alicia) and her shouting ‘Stop! There’s a plastic bottle!'” Diana said.

Irene makes new plans for Yorkfest | Via York Daily Record.