Lighting up the 'Ville: Louisville hosts night time Christmas parade

Sparkling and twinkling, this year’s Louisville Christmas parade proceeded down Broad Street, reflected in the eyes of dozens of giddy children in one of the largest crowd turnouts in years.

“I think we were happiest about all the participation. If you look at all those trucks and floats and golf carts, that was an awful lot of work and enthusiasm by a lot of people,” said Louisville Mayor Jenny Smith, who walked the entire route handing out candy and well wishes. “I heard one city employee say that they think it might have been one of biggest crowds our parade has ever had. This is the second year we’ve had it at night and we feel like that gives it a lot more magic, and so we plan to continue that.”

This year’s parade theme was, “Lighting up the ‘Ville: Candyland Edition.”

“When judging the floats, one of the criteria was how closely did you follow the theme,” Smith said. “There were some floats that were quite good but they didn’t really have anything to do with Candyland and so they lost points as a result of that.”

The parade was the highlight of an all-day festival that began with vendors, rides and entertainment in Helen Clark Memorial Park throughout the day. After the parade, the city held a free screening of The Grinch in the park. The event featured a car show that included a BMW, a Lamborghini, a Trans Am and others.

Smith said that the city has developed an events committee that took over and planned this year’s holiday events.

“They managed the parade and Bustlin’ on Broad and other events, such as the outdoor movie screenings,” Smith said. “It has been very successful and taken some pressure off of the other city officials.”

Committee Members are Amy Broxton, Jenna Watkins, Stephanie Scatina, Laura Wheeler, Valerie Forrest, James Davis, Chris Goodwin and Gena Sapp.

The city has planned a holiday house decorating contest and is selling Lighting up the ‘Ville t-shirts and luminary kits for Christmas weekend.

“We’re trying to involve more people in planning these events,” Smith said. “We’re also raising money from businesses so none of this costs the city anything.”

Parade Entry Winners

Santa Floats (15ft or longer):

1^st Place - Jerry Taylor

2^nd Place - Pumpkin Patch

Elf Floats (Under 15ft):

1^st Place – Ray Garrer Family

2^nd Place – Louisville Methodist Church

Reindeer – Vehicle only:

1^st Place – Jeff & Megan Cook

2^nd Place – Jason Fountain

Golf Cart:

1^st Place – Billy Valduga

2^nd Place – Joe & Nancy Cox

3^rd Place – Jim Harrison

4^th Place – Rhodes Murphy

“We really plan to continue to have these types of community events,” Smith said. “We’ll have more movies in the park and events like this that bring everyone together.”

This year’s Platinum sponsors include are Queensborough National Bank & Trust, Home Fresh Bistro and the City of Louisville. Gold sponsors are First State Bank, Coastal Processing, Abbot and Murphy and Turnipseed Engineers. Billy Valduga’s State Farm Insurance is the Silver sponsor, Coastal Waste the Bronze sponsor and Tax Commissioner Nancy McGraw and Style & Beyond Hair Salon are both supporters.

City Administrator Ricky Sapp gave special thanks to the host of city employees who helped make all of the events possible.

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Lighting up the 'Ville: Louisville hosts night time Christmas parade