Logansport’s annual holiday parade is back to brighten Broadway the day after Thanksgiving.
More than 50 different parts will make up the festivities moving through downtown, including Miss Indiana, the Chicago Cubs mascot, Santa Claus and fireworks.
Parishioners with First United Methodist Church in Logansport worked on their float on Saturday, Nov. 18. They covered a hay wagon in lights and tinsel before rigging arches spanning the wagon’s length decked in star-shaped lights.
Beth Ann Cook, pastor at First United Methodist Church, said the float’s theme is “Shine for Jesus,” a slogan a recently retired preschool teacher at the church’s Little Children’s Ministry often declared.
“The theme of the parade is Logansport appreciation and we’re appreciating preschool teachers — people who really invest in children, especially at a young age,” Cook said.
A manger stands atop the float that adults and children will sing near dressed in nativity attire during the parade.
More parishioners will walk alongside the float handing out candy canes.
Parishioners will serve free hot chocolate, cookies and popcorn in front of the church, located at 800 E. Broadway, along the parade route. Downtown holiday revelers will also be able to head inside the church if they want to warm up and use the restrooms.
Light Up Logansport is back in 2017 for its second consecutive year after a three-year hiatus.
Alan Riendeau, a First United Methodist Church parishioner, said the church didn’t participate last year but has since the 1990s. The church’s first float was a small trailer with a cross and lights that shined on the church logo, he recalled.
A sense of togetherness is what made the church want to participate, Riendeau said.
“We’re all about community,” he said. “We want community relations, not just throughout the whole town, but mainly right around here. People know we’re here but they don’t know much about us and this is our way of getting out and letting them see us.”
Cook said the ideas for the church’s float came from getting a group of parishioners together to brainstorm and find inspiration on Pinterest, an online a social network that users collect and share images on in theme-based collections.
“It’s always fun to work with others and we get to know more about each other too as parishioners, especially new people coming in,” Riendeau added.
Darrian Arch, Miss Indiana, will be waving from the parade’s lineup as well. Clark, the Chicago Cubs’ mascot, will be there too. Logansport Police Officer of the Year and Firefighter of the Year will also be named.
Mayor Dave Kitchell called the parade a family-friendly event that’s good for downtown.
“It’s a home-for-the-holidays kind of a thing to get people who are here enjoying the holidays,” he said.
The parade starts at 7 p.m. Friday and heads west down East Broadway at Eighth Street before turning south onto Fourth Street, east onto East Market Street and then south onto Fifth Street.
Reach Mitchell Kirk at mitchell.kirk@pharostribune.com or 574-732-5130