The Abingdon Ruritan Club will celebrate its 80th Seafood Festival from 3-8 p.m. on Wednesday, May 15, at the festival grounds in Bena.

The Abingdon Ruritan Club Seafood Festival is held twice a year on the third Wednesday of May and October.

There are eight people who have been serving at all of the 80 Abingdon Ruritan Club seafood festivals and six of them are Ruritan club members. Those members are Rupert Thomas Jr., Graham Blake, David Dea, Jon Beck, Walter Priest and L.T. Wells. Volunteer Rachel Wells and clam shucker Catherine Smith also have helped at all 80 festivals, rounding out the “Great Eight,” as they are known.

Thomas, Blake, Dea, Beck and Wells all met up at the Ruritan Club last week to look back on the 80 seafood festivals that they served and talked about how far they have come since the very first one.

“We worked good as a group and we had a lot of fun,” said Dea.

“I don’t think any of us would (have) seen what we got here today,” said Wells.

“We ...