Is COVID really the death of Wichita’s St. Patrick’s Day parade? Or can it be saved?
.JPG "The last St. Patrick’s Day parade in the Historic Delano District, March 16, 2019, before the COVID pandemic.")
Being largely of German/Polish heritage, I doubt I have much if any Irish blood flowing through my veins — or arteries for that matter.
But I was still saddened to see the end of a Wichita tradition, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
The parade down Douglas through the Delano Business District was one of the biggest free parties in Wichita all year and it brought smiles to countless Wichitans.
We need more of those, not less.
My own fond memory of the parade was volunteering to barbecue free hot dogs, working alongside the congregants of New Covenant United Methodist Church. It meets in a storefront on Douglas in the heart of Delano and is a mission partner with my home church to feed the poor.
I went home smelling like a forest fire that day. But what a joy it was to see the crowd out there enjoying themselves — and who doesn’t like a free hot dog?
The leftovers were distributed to the homeless people who call Delano home, so they had both lunch and dinner that day.
Without a parade, there isn’t much to do on St. Patrick’s day that doesn’t revolve around bars and beers.
I learned that back in 1983, on one of my first assignments as a just-out-of-college cub correspondent for the Burbank Daily Review in California.
My editor sent me to a local pub that had called the paper to let us know they were having a “major event” for St. Patrick’s Day.
The editor didn’t get a lot of details and when I arrived at the pub, there was a huge banner hung above the door reading: “Erin Go Braless.”
The “major event” turned out to be a wet T-shirt contest.
Needless to say, neither the story I wrote, nor the copious photos taken by the suddenly enthusiastic photographer with me, ever saw the light of publication.
The Wichita St. Patrick’s day parade wasn’t that kind of event.
It was as family-friendly as anything Wichita ever does. Numerous children marched in the parade each year and the route down Douglas was lined with many more kids watching the high school marching bands, floats, classic cars, bagpipers, etc. — and of course scrambling for thrown candy.
In the end, the parade died of COVID-19.
At the dawn of the pandemic, before Sedgwick County even had its first case of the disease, the parade was the first major event canceled under a county health order banning all gatherings expecting more than 250 people in attendance. It was more or less the same story in 2021.
This year initially looked promising, but the parade was scratched off the calendar again after a winter COVID spike sent hospitalization numbers soaring to what county Health Officer Garold Minns said was their worst since the pandemic began.
The final end came Tuesday in an e-mail from Cameron Lawrence, the grandson of Nancy Lawrence, who started the parade and shepherded it through 14 years:
Each time the parade came around to plan, there was new uncertainty with whatever information had been circulating (about COVID) at that time. Attendance, sponsorships, and public opinion were unpredictable.
Over time our team’s lives have changed, and our passions along with them. Personally, I want to thank you for the 14 years of celebrating with us since the parade’s inception. I also want to thank my grandmother, Nancy Lawrence for all of the hard work she put into this parade each year.
Will this truly be the last time we gather as a community for a St. Patrick’s parade?
Maybe, maybe not.
The Delano parade itself replaced a parade that used to be sponsored by KAKE-TV downtown each year, so stopping and starting it is not unprecedented, nor impossible.
On its Facebook page Wednesday: “The Delano Neighborhood Association would be more than happy to help support keeping this tradition alive. An event on the scale is no small task and requires plenty of advance planning. So if there is anyone interested in taking over the organizing of this parade then now is the time to start working on it.”
Here’s hoping they’re successful.
