Parade rolls onward

Mike Fink of Crothersville, with wife, Marsha, served as grand marshal for Satuday’s Oktoberfest Parade in downtown Seymour. Fink recently retired after 15 years as Jackson County’s veterans service officer.

Oktoberfest has always been billed as an event designed to bring the community together and to give those who have moved away a chance to come home, visit with family and friends and reacquaint themselves with the city.

Scott Courtney of Kalamazoo, Mich., falls into that category.

“We come back for Oktoberfest every year,” Courtney said Saturday afternoon. “My mother’s family is here.”

Courtney said he and his family enjoy returning to Seymour each year for Oktoberfest because Kalamazoo, which is much larger than Seymour, offers nothing remotely similar to Oktoberfest, which ended its 37th annual run Saturday night.

“It almost makes us want to move back to Seymour,” Courtney said.

Courtney’s son, Alexander Courtney, 5, said he enjoyed the parade, especially the tractors in the lineup.

“They all have John Deere,” Scott Courtney said of his son and two younger twin brothers.

Aeriel Morrow, 8, of Seymour said she and her family, including younger brother Laine Morrow, 6, have been attending the parade for a number of years.

“I probably liked the little cars the best,” Morrow said of the Rolling Hills Shrine Club minicars. Her brother agreed.

“I liked the little cars too,” Laine Morrow said.

Morrow said he also had the chance to see the dogs from Paws & Claws Pet Resort in Seymour that were “married” in a brief ceremony in front of the reviewing stand at Second and Walnut streets.

Sydney Parlagreco, 11, of Seymour also liked the unique wedding ceremony.

“I thought it was cute,” Parlagreco said. “It was different.”

Parlagreco, a sixth-grader and cheerleader at Seymour Middle School, said she also liked seeing all of her friends in the parade as well as the cheerleaders from Seymour High School and the middle school.

Cecily Coffman, 11, of Seymour said the minicars were her favorites, although she also liked the cheerleaders.

“They were cool to watch,” said Coffman, who is a cheerleader at Immanuel Lutheran School.

Megan Winter, 11, of Seymour also said she really liked watching the cheerleaders.

“And seeing my friends in it,” Winter said of the parade.

Although many of her friends were in the parade, she was unsure about whether she’d like to join them.

“Kinda,” she said.

Many of the thousands on hand for the parade returned to the main streets of the festival after the last of 120 units passed to find something to eat among the many offerings.

Others were treated to the music of strolling musicians, including accordionists Ken Nicol of Marysville, Ohio, and Mary Drake of Dayton, Ohio.

“This is the first time we’ve played here,” Nicol said. “This is one of the cleanest and best festival’s we’ve attended. They’re very well organized.”