By Jessica Isaacs
The streets of Boone were filled with a sea of red, white and blue (and black and gold) this weekend as the town and community joined with Appalachian State University to celebrate the Fourth of July.
Saturday’s parade pulled in more participants and spectators than ever before. Recently retired Watauga elections director Jane Ann Hodges led the parade as Grand Marshall, and the Watauga Community Band played tunes from the front porch of the Jones House as the procession made its way through town.
Boone’s Director of Cultural Resources Pilar Fotta said some of the parade’s highlights included appearances by Uncle Sam, Yosef and a large group of student athletes from ASU.
“It was really great to have Yosef and the student athletes join in the parade,” Fotta said. “It was nice to have them come up and play games and interact with people on the lawn — it was a really nice touch this year and we really enjoyed it.
“We feel like the parade was excellent. We were extremely fortunate that the weather held off and it was beautiful.”
The parade, which left from the Horn in the West parking lot in years past, changed its route this year to avoid interrupting the local farmers’ market. Instead, it left from the Poplar Grove Extension and traveled East on King Street, ending at the Legends parking lot on the campus of ASU.
Fotta said the county and the university were great partners in allowing the town to use their parking lots during the parade.
“We felt very happy to have cooperation from the county to use their lot and from ASU to use the Legends lot so that we could reverse the route this year,” Fotta said. “We are very grateful that our participants just went with the flow, showed up and went through the new process. It seemed to go very well.”
After the parade, Mayor Andy Ball and town officials joined locals and visitors on the Jones House lawn, where watermelon and more than 300 pieces of cake were served.
Downtown Boone Development Coordinator Virginia Falck said the town’s annual Independence Day celebration always serves a great way for people to get back in touch with their friends and neighbors.
“It provides an opportunity for people all over the county to come together and see friends that they haven’t seen in awhile,” Falck said. “People are running up to each other to catch up — it’s just a really great community event.”
Fotta said the festivities bring the community together every year to focus on what’s really important.
“A couple of years ago we had a visitor from out of town who was here with his family, and they don’t do a parade where he lives,” Fotta said. “He was out here on the lawn having cake and watermelon, looking out over the town and he said, ‘this is really wonderful — this is just a little slice of Americana.’ I loved that.
“People always say they loved coming to the parade as kids and now they love bringing their kids. It’s a generational ritual for a lot of people.”
Check out our photos from the parade!
Photos by Ken Ketchie/High Country Press
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