PIONEER DAY REFLECTION

THE 87TH ANNUAL PIONEER DAY PARADE

Harry Ovitt and I were the announcers this year at the 14th and Spring St. station. From our announcers’ table during the Pioneer Day Parade, and then afterward in City Park and later at the Pioneer Museum Campus, we saw plenty of happy and smiling people taking pictures.

There were great photo-ops and memory makers that passed us to the delight of the sidewalk viewers. Here are a few parade entries that stuck out for me. The brand new half-million dollar John Deere tractor is No. 2. The awesome fleet of crawlers, tractors and dozers is always a tribute to how the soil was prepared for crops and roads. The group of JB Dewer sponsored tractors that have been restored by high school students warms my sense of saving history.

As the behemoth planting and harvesting equipment covered the width of Spring St. we wondered how they were shipped from their manufacturing sites and how they got across the river before bridges. Mules are Harry’s favorite country animal and there must have been three dozen of them working that day. Vaqueros, dancing horses, trick ropers and great dress-attire are a reminder of fun times when the work was finished. Let’s not forget that Pioneer Day is a day to relive our history and pass it on to the next generations.
That makes my No. 1 choice for this year to be all of the represented schools, bands, youth sports, SkillsUSA, dance studios, drama classes and FFA that participated because adults take the time to install the sense of “Paso’s yesterday is preserved for tomorrow.”
If you have photos that you’d care to share with the community, please send them to me at CDESConsult@yahoo.com.