2022 Coldwater Holiday parade warms up cold crowd for the season
COLDWATER — Temperatures below freezing did not keep hundreds of children and their parents from gathering along Chicago Street to welcome Santa and enjoy the annual Holiday Parade Saturday night, Dec. 3.
Dressed in his top hat and town crier wardrobe, Tim Farrell commented over a public address system on each unit as it passed his Four Corners Park location.
The project brings together Farrell’s family to plan the event, then all the groups, businesses, and those who March. Thirty units participated, including Walmart Distribution Center and Clemens Food Group. There were Girl Scouts and five large decorated giant tow trucks.
With the theme of “Toy Trains and Candy Canes,” groups handed out candy along the sides of the mile-long route with a warning to the kids to stay out of the street.
The organizers named former Coldwater High School cross country and track coach Jim Bilsborrow and his wife, Jackie, named as the Parade Grand Marshals. They greeted the crowd from the back of a pickup truck.
Coldwater police blocked off U.S. 12 from Hudson to Pierson streets for the parade sending traffic down Pearl Street as the detour.
The usual first unit, the Coldwater Fire truck, missed the 7:30 p.m. start after an emergency medical call took it north on Marshall minutes before. Some thought the parade started early.
Ken Leonhard, back in 1994, started the parade. The Chamber of Commerce and the city took it over for more than a decade. When it became too much work, Leonhard’s daughter, Karey, Farrell’s wife, and her husband did not want to see it end and took over the planning.
In 2016 they returned from what had been an afternoon parade back to the night. “This is so much more of a draw than daytime,” Tim said.
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In 2020, Tim could not participate after contracting COVID-19 and seeing his leukemia come back. Son Christian Leonhard and wife Shayna, along with daughter Coleen Fleming and husband Logan, took up the reins with mom Karey to make sure the parade went on.
Tim said the crowd this year was good, even with the competing Coldwater High School Snowball and the Big Ten Championship game with the University of Michigan taking away some who would attend.
The family also plans and presents the city’s Halloween Parade.
— Contact Don Reid: dReid@Gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter: @DReidTDR.
This article originally appeared on Coldwater Daily Reporter: 2022 Coldwater Holiday parade Saturday night
