City celebrates 20th anniversary of Pancoe Aquatic Center

BANGOR – The City of Bangor on Friday, Aug. 2, will hold an event marking the 20th anniversary of the Pancoe Aquatic Center, which has become one of the City’s most popular municipal facilities since its opening in 2004.

The pool will be open for its regular hours Friday (including from 1-4:30 p.m. for families, and noon to 1 p.m. for adult lap swim) and the afternoon will include a bounce house and a large inflatable water slide, both courtesy of Bangor Area Rentals.

A brief ceremony is scheduled for 1 p.m. to mark the aquatic center’s opening. Among those in attendance and offering remarks will be Dr. Michael and Eleanor Pancoe. They are the parents of Beth Pancoe, for whom the aquatic center was named. Beth Pancoe was an accomplished diver at Bangor High School who was a university student when she passed away in 1999 from leukemia.

The aquatic center opened in June 2004 at a cost of nearly $1.8 million. Stephen and Tabitha King generously contributed $1.4 million of that amount, with the City providing another $385,000. Since its opening, the center has drawn tens of thousands of people looking to escape the heat and enjoy its slides and water features.

The center is located at 175 13 ^th Street in Hayford Park near the intersection with Union Street. The individual cost to use the aquatic center in the afternoon ranges from $2 to $5.