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October 27, 2012

Veterans Day parade returns on Nov. 10

Charles Oliver

Dalton may be rather small as cities go. But when it comes to patriotism, the city doesn’t take a back seat to anyone.

Want proof? You’ll find it on Saturday, Nov. 10, when Dalton hosts its annual Veterans Day parade. The parade typically boasts more than 100 floats, bands and other attractions, making it one of the largest Veterans Day parades in the state. And last year’s parade drew some 1,500 spectators, according to organizers.

“The city of Atlanta used to say they had the biggest Veterans Day parade in the state. They don’t say that anymore. They just say they have one of the biggest,” said George Lo Greco, parade chairman.

The parade has been organized in 10 of the last 11 years by the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion. This year’s parade starts at 10 a.m., and participants will start to line up at 9 a.m.

The parade will have a new route this year, taking it down Hamilton Street for the first time in years.

“We will start at Thornton and Waugh and go down Waugh and turn right onto Hamilton Street,” said Lo Greco. “It will go down Hamilton to Morris and turn right on Morris, then go up Thornton and turn right. It will go up Thornton to Crawford and turn left onto Crawford. It will go west on Crawford, then disband at Harmon Field.”

The parade currently has 18 entries, but organizers expect to have 150. The deadline to register to take part is Monday. There’s no charge to participate. To register, contact Lo Greco at gnlogreco@yahoo.com.

The special guest speaker this year will be Bob Turner, past national commander of the American Legion.

“We’ll have a lot more antique tractors this year. We’ve got some new antique tractor clubs taking part,” Lo Greco said. “They are all going to be hauling trailers with hay bails. If anyone wants to ride, there should be plenty of places. Everybody wants to be carrying veterans, and we encourage all veterans who are interested to show up. But I figure they’ll carry anyone who wants to ride on a hay bail.”

Lo Greco said the parade was started by Monroe Blackwell, a World War II veteran from Dalton who passed away four years ago.

“For a number of years, we used to have a ceremony out in front of the courthouse. We’d have a speaker, like a four-star general or an admiral. We’d have all these dignitaries show up, and there’d be 11 people in the audience, 10 of them veterans,” Lo Greco said. “We started asking what we could do to get more people out on Veterans Day, and Monroe said, ‘Let’s have a parade.’ He was our first parade chairman, and he really got things going.”

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