Jim Thorpe parade honors retiring veterans director
Mike Hopstock of Lehighton drives a Tin Lizzy with the Shriners during the Jim Thorpe Halloween Parade on Saturday. RON GOWER/SPECIAL TO THE TIMES NEWS
Henry Desrosiers, the retiring director of the Carbon County Office of Veterans Affairs, is the grand marshal in the Jim Thorpe Halloween Parade on Saturday. RON GOWER/SPECIAL TO THE TIMES NEWS
Jim Thorpe’s Halloween Parade brought a festive mood to the town’s East Side on Saturday, complete with a band, costumed characters, floats, fire trucks and dignitaries.
A highlight was grand marshal Henry Desrosiers, the director of Carbon County Veterans Affairs, who will be retiring at the end of this year. He has served in the position since 2009.
Desrosiers rode in the front seat of a black, open vehicle. Many of the parade’s viewers yelled to him by name as he passed on the parade route.
The parade formed at Memorial Park, traveled to North Street (Route 903) and onto Third Street, where it disbanded.
“I enjoyed it,” said Carson Stump, 10, of White Haven. “I got a lot of candy.”
Candy might be what the youngsters loved most as firefighters, political candidates and many other parade participants tossed to the spectators along the parade route.
The parade was led by the Jim Thorpe Police Department and Mayor Michael Sofranko.
The judging stand was at the Bott Building along North Street. Next to the judges was a television crew from Blue Ridge Communications TV 13, which televised the march.
Next came the Jim Thorpe Fire Department, proudly displaying five shined pieces of apparatus. A driver in one of the vehicles wore a scary mask.
About 35 members of the Jim Thorpe March Band participated, dressed in assorted costumes.
The parade had a clown, Santa Claus, skeletons and, of course, all sorts of freakish beings.
Jim Thorpe Cub Pack 138 rode in a float shaped like a racing car.
Jim Thorpe Girl Scout Troop 31470 had a large group of costumed marchers.
Mason’s Cold Beer had a skeleton drinking from a keg mounted on the hood of a vehicle.
Always a delight are the miniature motorized Tin Lizzy cars of the Shriners, weaving into a figure-8 pattern along the route.
One of the most impressive sights was a large float by Kory Rabenold Productions’ “Mr. Pickles.” There were frightful, but entertaining, characters aboard. Bubbles blew from the float, which had structures aboard that might be considered a castle in its crudest form.
Judges for the parade were longtime Jim Thorpe area residents Edward Lewis, John Bilsak and Thomas Wildoner.
The parade was sponsored by the Jim Thorpe Lions Club.
