Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, December 3, 1994 TAG: 9412050022
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SARAH HUNTLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Roanoke old-timers remember different things about the holiday parades of yesteryear.
For auctioneer Garland Sheets, mention of the parades brings back recollections of his family, who dressed in Western gear and rode horses in the winter processions.
Laban Johnson, the city's special events coordinator, thinks of the impressive bands that brought music to the merriment.
And Sheriff W. Alvin Hudson, who was a lieutenant with the Police Department's traffic division, remembers the crowds.
"Those parades were a big event in the city back then. We would have thousands of people on the sidewalks, eight or 10 deep, from where the parade route began to where it ended," Hudson said. "Officers on motorcycles had to ride right alongside the curb to keep the crowds back, especially when the float with Santa Claus went by. It was a child's dream."
That was how the parades were back then: before the turmoil of the late 1960s and efforts to integrate the schools resulted in violence, before the shopping centers went up and usurped downtown's niche as the community's gathering place, before the displays turned commercial.
And if the students in Patrick Henry High School's marketing club pull it off, the magic of Christmases past will return to Roanoke. Tonight.
For 16 years, students in the school's Distributive Education Club of America have organized the city's winter parade in an effort to promote civic consciousness. It's no small feat. They've planned the routes, invited the participants, filed the permits and raised the funds, nearly $4,500 annually.
"This requires organizational skills that many adults couldn't begin to appreciate," Johnson said.
This year, though, the students are going a few extra miles. They've put renewed emphasis on holiday floats. They are wooing back school bands, and for the first time in more than two decades, they are holding a parade after dark.
"We are trying to get away from the commercial parade and return to the more traditional," said Michelle King, student president of DECA.
The parade will begin at 6:30 tonight (or Sunday, if the weather forecast is wrong and it rains) and kick off the city's first Festival of Lights. The new winter festival will be confined this year to downtown, where white lights will illuminate the outside of shops and office buildings. Next year, though, city officials hope the festival will spread throughout the valley and include elaborate light displays in parks and other public spaces, Johnson said.
Under the darkness of the night sky, the parade itself will also feature lights.
"All the floats will be lit up," said Gary Leah, one of two teachers helping the DECA group with the parade preparations. "We hope it will be glitter and glamour all the way."
Roanoke's last nighttime parade was held in the late 1960s. For years, the parades were sponsored by the Roanoke Valley Merchants' Association, but the organizers gave the effort up after violence erupted along the parade route.
Keith Hartless was a drum major for Glenvar High School in one of the last nighttime parades. Now the choir director at Northside Junior High School, he remembers the outbreak well.
"We were coming down the street, and all of a sudden it was like we were soldiers going into battle. Yardsticks appeared in the air and near the ground, tripping us as we marched," he said.
A merchant had given the yardsticks out as a promotion, Hartless said. "I'm sure he never imagined they would become weapons."
On Campbell Avenue, the Patrick Henry band was attacked by rock-throwing and board-wielding spectators, Johnson said. Students were injured.
"The high schools were being integrated, and there were some racial overtones to what happened," Johnson said. "But more than race, I think the outcry was a reflection of the turbulent times.
"As a reaction to all that, the parade was stopped."
For several holiday seasons, Roanoke had no parade. When the DECA students took it over in 1978, the parade was scheduled for noon.
In addition to returning the parade to its traditional hour, the students are encouraging participation by offering prizes. Roanoker magazine employees will serve as judges, and the best band, float and marching unit will be awarded $300.
More than 85 entries have been submitted, 47 of which are floats. Several bands also are scheduled to appear, although Leah said that he would like to see more. Bands are one of the extracurricular activities hit hard by school budget cuts, and many of the musical groups that have survived are busy with championship games and other holiday concert commitments.
"What were once 10-band and 15-band parades are unfortunately few and far between," Leah said.
The parade, which should last just over an hour, will begin on Reserve Avenue Southwest, progress downtown along Jefferson Street and turn up Campbell Avenue Southwest to Third Street Southwest.
"We hope people will come out," Johnson said. "Nowadays, it has become harder to coax people away from their TV sets out to public events. The students at Patrick Henry have really worked hard to get people back into the spirit."
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