This year the Oyster Festival is reinventing itself by bringing you the First Ever Seafood Cooking Contest, and the Second Annual L'il Miss Oyster Festival Contest. Another "first" is that the Bank of America has signed on as the presenting sponsorship of the festival for two years!

You can still count on the perennial favorites - the Oyster Shucking and Oyster Eating contests, the car raffle, kiddies carnival, waterfront activities and the non-profit food court and lots of entertainment that together will make the Saturday, Oct. 14 and Sunday Oct. 15 event memorable.

Oyster Festival 2006 co-chairs Tom Reardon and Donna Lee, Rotary president, welcomed guests at the press conference Aug. 15 at the Oyster Bay Community Center to promote the sixth Oyster Festival to be run by the Rotary Club of Oyster Bay to help 39 local nonprofit groups. "The Oyster Festival is a family affair. Rotary brought it down to the waterfront so everyone can see our beautiful harbor," said Ms. Lee.

Her sister, Debra Goyena, a past festival co-chair is in charge of the major raffle which will offer a three-year lease on a BMW provided by BMW of Oyster Bay; a boat, an 18 ft. Angler; or $15,000 cash to the winner. Oyster Bay Town Supervisor John Venditto bought the first ticket. When he was offered the 6 for $100 package, he said, "Forgedaboudit." Tickets are $20 each or 6 for $100.

Tom Reardon, the originator and first chair of the Oyster Festival said the reason the Oyster Bay Chamber of Commerce (the founding organization) welcomed the nonprofits to man the food court was, "We couldn't do it all and wanted to spread the wealth," he said.

Mr. Reardon introduced Chris Ivers of Whole Foods of Jericho who is sponsoring the Seafood Cooking Contest. In honor of the 23rd Oyster Festival, they are inviting the first 23 cold entries brought to the Whole Foods tent on Saturday and the first 23 hot entrées on Sunday to qualify for entry into the contest. The judges will include chefs from Whole Foods, noted food columnist Sylvia Carter, Chef Michael Meehan of Lori Restaurant & Bar of Southampton, Chef Steven Del Lema from Wild Finn in Huntington Village as well as other Long Island seafood chefs to be announced. The contest is being sponsored by Whole Foods which is celebrating the first anniversary of their Jericho store and the 10th anniversary of their Manhasset store.

Another anniversary is being celebrated at the Oyster Festival - the 10th year anniversary of Cablevision's Long Island High School game show The Long Island Challenge. News 12's Scott Feldman will be at the show mobile Sunday afternoon to give visitors a chance to play the 23rd Annual Oyster Festival version of the popular TV show.

The Little Miss Oyster Festival contest was begun last year as a fundraiser for the Empowerment Society of the United States of America, a not-for-profit membership organization dedicated to assisting the women of the U.S. Armed Forces. Oyster Bay resident Pamela Pfeiffer, a graduate of the Institute for Professional Empowerment Coaching, and director of The Empowerment Society, said girls 3 to 8 years of age can submit their photo to become one of 20 finalists asked to participate in the naming of L'il Miss Oyster Fest during the 2006 festival. The winner from the top 20 finalists will be announced from the show mobile on Sunday, Oct. 25.

Mr. Reardon announced that Fritz Coudert will be bringing a tall ship to the Oyster Festival "to dock at the Carl Marcellino Pier at the WaterFront Center." Mr. Coudert said getting a tall ship to come to the festival is exciting, expensive and exhausting in that it involves scheduling the boat for the trip - which can fail with a fair amount of bad weather and bad luck.

One of the boats he is working with is the Unicorn that is presently at an event in The Great Lakes. Mr. Coudert also hopes to have a power boat available that seats 40 people to tour the harbor. Mr. Coudert said the WaterFront Center has joined the nonprofits at the Food Court and has contracted with the Blimpie organization that has a franchise in Farmingdale - to provide their food.

Attendees at this year's festival will be able to take a small piece of it home. The organizers of the festival, the Oyster Bay Charitable Fund, will be offering an array of festival T-shirts, jerseys, tote bags, hats and more for sale. In addition to the logoed merchandise, look for shirts with fun quotes and more.

The favored transportation to the festival is still the LIRR which will bring attendees into the heart of the festival. Once here, transportation will include horse and carriage rides and a Trackless Train.

Back by popular demand, are those fun-loving pirates with their biggest encampment yet, looking high and low for that buried treasure. Besides jolly performances - there will be treasure hunts to look forward to.

The festival takes place on the waterfront and the adjoining downtown village streets and Townsend Square. Mr. Reardon said the chamber has sent out letters to merchants saying if they want to be part of the festival they have to pay the "rental fee".

Mr. Reardon said, "They have to pay a fee to come out on the street. We are not saying 'shut the door' - they can use the inside of their space. That is okay. It's not just crotchetiness - it's a case of whose land it is. It's 'Tom's Land' for the two days of the Oyster Festival. The Oyster Festival committee gets to decide who, where, what and when things happen: Tom and the police who are helping us."

The fun of the festival will extend into the downtown area with people dressed in old-fashioned costumes, photographers, jugglers and street acts. There will also be a musical performance site in the downtown area with a location still to be determined. Mr. Reardon said the current plan - which is fluid - is that the nonprofits will be ringed around the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial parking lot in a U-shape with the sponsors inside the curve. The arts and crafts will feature140 artisans from 32 states housed in two tents. Bands will play every hour in the food court and on Audrey Avenue. The carnival will be coming back to keep the kids happy, "It all works very well," said Mr. Reardon.

He shared some of the backstage information about the festival which he called "fluid." "Last year it rained for 10 days before the festival and we didn't have any oysters. We finally got them from southern New Jersey and through the efforts of Mark Fox of Canterbury Ales, from Virginia. Things go wrong and we try to fix them," said Mr. Reardon. "We try to accommodate the not-for-profits with food court and to accommodate the sponsors. We are looking forward to a great festival."

At the press conference, Brian Kenny, one of the food vendors who helps the non-profits in the food court chaired by Beverly Zembko, brought spare ribs for sampling. The usual oysters weren't there - the chair was "under the weather" said Mr. Reardon. He was demonstrating that chairing the Oyster Festival is understanding things are fluid - and the trick is to go with the flow.