Some 117 units marched proudly through the streets of Centre last week as part of Christmas Parade 2004. Members of Spirit of Cherokee, Inc. which sponsors the parade, said this year’s was the largest in the past several years.

The parade started at DC/Gas/West Main Shopping Center and ended at Centre Elementary School. The forecast for that day was a 100 percent rain chance and the weather threat loomed throughout the week. However, as Emcee Jerry Baker put it, “The Good Lord is smiling down upon us with partly cloudy skies and you couldn’t ask for better temperatures!”

Not only were coats and umbrellas unnecessary, said the WEIS Radio personality, but many people even dressed in shorts and t-shirts.

A good crowd of citizens lined the streets to see the many attractions passing through their main street, including bands, floats, Shriner’s exhibitions, horses, school groups and more.

“We always enjoy the Christmas Parade and we’ve got a great group out here tonight,” said Mrs. Hulgan, who helped out with the emcee duties. “It’s good to see the crowd here. The rain went on through earlier this afternoon and we were able to go ahead and have the parade as scheduled.”

This year, the Spring Garden Community served as Grand Marshal for the parade. The Rev. Tommy Ledbetter, pastor, Goshen United Methodist Church, led things off we the invocation.

Pre-parade entertainment included Christmas selections sung by the combined choir of Cedar Grove Baptist Church.

The float winners for this year’s event were as follows

-School Division-Spring Garden Elementary School Singers, first place; Spring Garden FFA, second place, and Gaylesville Pre-K, third place.

-Church and Community-Centre Church of God, first place; Fairview United Methodist Church, second place and Brownie Troop 651, third place.

-Business winners-Sound Concepts, first place; Weiss Lake Realty, second place.

Parade judges for this years event included Warren Ward, President - Albert Burney, Inc. of Gadsden; Linda Webb, director, operations and logistics, Redfield Group of Gadsden and Bobby Welch, Director, Center for Cultural Arts, Gadsden.

Baker and Hulgan, on behalf of the Spirit of Cherokee, Inc., extended their appreciation to Loder’s Plant Farm for donated the flowers placed on the grandstand and to J.B. Music Company for providing the music and the sound system.

They also mentioned the Centre Police Department for providing traffic control.

“They’ve done an excellent job,” said Baker. “They do an excellent job every year. Chief Val Courtney and his fine staff work tireless not only to control the traffic, but block the streets to make sure it is safe so you can enjoy the parade without any traffic coming through.”

According to Mrs. Hulgan, everything seemed to fall into place for this year’s event.

“We really had better participation than what we expected,” said Hulgan. “We had more of the school and community organizations participating than we have had in the past. J.B. Music had great music here and the choir that performed before the parade was really good.”

Of the 117 entries in the parade, Mrs. Hulgan said, “We had very few no shows, probably less than five and that is a pretty good percentage!”

Hulgan noted this was the largest parade in several years.

“It went wonderfully!” said Mrs. Hulgan. “The weather was great, the crowd was large. We had a lot of participants in the parade. I think everybody really enjoyed it. The Christmas Spirit is here, The Season is here. We appreciate everybody that took part in it and helped organize it. We just want everybody to have a Merry Christmas!