South Bay to have a memorable Memorial Day weekend.

Patriotic observances and a giant arts and crafts festival will dominate the traditional Memorial Day weekend as the South Bay honors its military dead and enjoys the sunny days leading up to summer.

Those who died in military service will be remembered on Monday--Memorial Day--with speeches, flag presentations, music and 21-gun salutes at locations ranging from cemeteries to military monuments.

On a less solemn note, the semiannual Chamber of Commerce Fiesta de las Artes will unfold in Hermosa Beach Saturday through Monday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Pier and Hermosa avenues near the city pier. Food, entertainment and work by some 420 artists and artisans will be on the bill.

Memorial Day, previously known as Decoration Day, has roots in the 1860s custom of placing flowers on the graves of Civil War dead. After World War I, the day was set aside to honor the dead of all American wars, as well as their families.

Green Hills Memorial Park in Rancho Palos Verdes will hold the South Bay’s largest and most spectacular observance, with a crowd of 3,500 expected for the 10 a.m. ceremony. Highlighting the fifth annual event will be the dedication of a memorial flagpole to Medal of Honor recipient Edward A. DeVore Jr., who was killed in Vietnam in 1968. The Harbor City native is interred at the memorial park, along with 4,000 other veterans.

A fly-over of World War II aircraft will begin the event at the park, 27501 S. Western Ave. There will be color guards from all branches of the military and a military band. A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter will take off from Green Hills with a floral memorial wreath, dropping it at sea.

Steven A. Espolt, chairman of the Green Hills Memorial Day observance, said the cemetery is the perfect site for a service honoring war dead. He noted that the park is on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, which was the last view of America that many servicemen had when they sailed overseas from the Long Beach Naval Station.

Inglewood holds one of the South Bay’s oldest ceremonies in front of the War Memorial at City Hall Mall, 1 Manchester Blvd. This year’s 43rd annual service at 11 a.m. will be put on by 25 veterans and community organizations. Each will place a wreath at the foot of the monument, which was dedicated in 1948 to honor World War II military dead from Inglewood and Lennox.

The ceremony will feature the Inglewood High School band and Junior ROTC students. “With the young people, we hope the community will come out to see them,” said Norma Mansis, secretary of the Memorial Day committee.

Another long-established South Bay observance takes place in Hawthorne, where the Hawthorne Veterans Council--made up of American Legion Post 314, Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2075 and World War I Barracks 2615 members--will hold its annual ceremony at 10 a.m. at the Memorial Center, 3901 W. El Segundo Blvd.

The Hawthorne High School band will provide music, along with New Sounds of Hawthorne, a group of senior citizens that will sing patriotic songs. The war dead will be honored with a 21-gun salute by a firing squad from Norton Air Force Base. After the ceremony there will be a reception at the American Legion Hall, 14124 S. Prairie Ave.

“We honor those men and women in all wars, and the freedom we observe because of their serving,” said Lois Moore, who is Veterans Council president and the widow of a Marine Corps pilot.

Gardena will hold two ceremonies. Several veterans groups will join in a Memorial Day service at 10 a.m. at Roosevelt Memorial Park, 18255 S. Vermont Ave. Later in the day, the Veterans of Foreign Wars Gardena Nisei Post 1961 will hold services at 2 p.m. at its hall, 1964 W. 162nd St. The post is made up of Japanese-American World War II Veterans.

The Lomita Chamber of Commerce and VFW Post 1622 will present a ceremony at 11 a.m. at City Hall, 24300 Narbonne Ave. An open house and lunch will follow the ceremony at the VFW Hall, 1865 Lomita Blvd.

In Redondo Beach, a wreath-laying ceremony will be held at 11 a.m. at Pacific Crest Cemetery, 2701 182nd St. at Inglewood Avenue. The Torrance Youth Band will play and, after the ceremony, a picnic will be held at the American Legion South Bay Post 184, 412 Camino Real, Redondo Beach.

About 100,000 people are expected in Hermosa Beach for the three-day arts festival, which will combine art and crafts with entertainment, including comedy, magic, electronically controlled puppets, jazz, reggae and soft rock.

Free parking will be provided at the Mira Costa High School parking lot, Artesia Boulevard and Peck Avenue in Manhattan Beach. A round-trip shuttle to and from the fiesta is $1, and children under 12 ride free.

Artists, some from as far away as Oregon and Texas, will show jewelry, hand-painted clothing, pottery, watercolors and paintings.

B. J. Conte, who coordinates the fiesta for the Chamber of Commerce, said the long-established celebration has been growing as family entertainment with the addition of clowns, a petting zoo and pony rides.

Community organizations will have booths, and a food pavilion will serve serve 28 different types of ethnic foods.

“It’s like taking a vacation in one spot,” Conte said.