'Sizzling Summer' parade is too cool
Riggins Kirk and Trinity McGuire wave their American flags and fidget with excitement watching the floats drive down Highway 54 Saturday before scooping up as much candy as they can to savor later.
JOSA SNOW/Press
The Grandmothers Club squirts the crowd with mustard and ketchup bottles, streaming colored yarn. They also throw very real candy while waving spatulas, Saturday.
A boy leaps and swings in circles around the back of a float during the Athol Daze Parade, Saturday.
Michael Baslington prepares to drive the Pecker Pole Loggin' truck through the Athol Parade on Saturday as George Zick hops onto his rig for the races.
Lorri Hodgman and Brailyn Schmidt are all smiles as they celebrate the 114th Athol Daze parade Saturday.
The American Legion Post 149 Color Guard leads the Athol parade, Saturday.
ATHOL — For a small town, Athol has big community support.
Seasoned paraders and novices alike marched from Athol Elementary to City Hall as onlookers smiled and waved for the 114th Athol Daze celebration parade Saturday.
“We do have a lot of fun,” Grandmothers Club member Gloria Borders said. "We just like to be together.”
The Grandmothers Club was formed in Spirit Lake in 1962, dedicated to community service.
Now, they don’t miss a parade.
More than a dozen grandmothers sat in a smoking-hot float, squirting red and yellow yarn from ketchup and mustard bottles toward the crowd while wearing chef’s hats and waving spatulas. Their barbecue motif evoked this year’s theme, "Sizzling Summer."
Meanwhile, trailing behind was Athol Locals, a club fiercely competing with the grandmothers to do the most good in the spirit of good fun.
“We come to the parade for getting the kids involved,” Lisa Qualsund said. Her daughter, Tatum Qualsund, was named Queen of the Athol Locals.
Tatum waved from under an umbrella on a Paradise Island float as a mermaid bathed in a kiddie pool beside her. Other Locals members marched and sunbathed wearing flowery shirts and flower leis, waving and gently tossing treats to the crowd.
“Small-town anything is always fun,” said Lorri Hodgson, holding her grandbaby and watching the parade go by with her family.
“We just want to watch the fun parade,” Hodgson said. Her daughter lives in Athol and she plans to move there.
“There was a parade, so we came out,” Hodgson’s daughter Roni Schmidt said.
Other families gathered to wave American flags, listen to music, connect to their city and jump on Tootsie Rolls and suckers that rained from the floats.
“We’re here for the candy!” Steve Hargrove said.
Pecker Pole Loggin’ company’s Michael Baslington entered his tiny logging truck in the parade.
“It’s the only time I can bring this out,” he joked. But seriously, he added “the enjoyment, the fun, the people, that’s what I love about the parade.”
Baslington joined his friend George Zick of Bofus Fat Belly Racing to drive his three-wheeled rig —something of a cross between a go-kart and a riding lawn mower that otherwise doesn’t leave the garage much.
He brings his rig out to race in parades and works on it in his free time.
“I’m racing all the time,” Zick joked.
The winner of Miss Northern Idaho, Pyper White, rode with her family tailing the Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris. The White family and the sheriff go to every parade to support their community and support first responders.
White, 13, won Miss Northern Idaho on the platform of wildfire prevention and uses parades to promote her cause. Her father is an Idaho Department of Lands wildfire investigator.
White will soon fight to be Miss Idaho, but, at least for one gorgeous Panhandle Saturday, she just smiled and waved.
