Mahanoy Memorial Day parade may be held despite rumors

April 29--MAHANOY CITY -- The annual Memorial Day parade in Mahanoy City has not been canceled at this time, but the decision to hold it May 26 is still under consideration by the organizers.

The Mahanoy Area United Veterans met Friday to discuss the situation on the parade's status. The 15-minute meeting was informal and led by United Veterans President William "Bill" Paul.

"We still have a shot at it," Paul said in the meeting room at the Mahanoy City American Legion Post 74. "We need to get the (state Department of Transportation) permit. I talked to the borough manager and he told me that the borough has taken care of the insurance."

Paul said that Service Electric Cablevision has been a financial sponsor of the parade, but he will not contact the company for its donation until he is sure a parade will take place.

"By making a lot of phone calls, I'm sure we can put some kind of a parade together," Paul said. "But those calls need to be made."

Paul said he planned to contact the borough Monday to get the arrangements in order.

"The string band is already gone," said Paul, referring to the Keystone String Band, a parade regular. "I was told the band had a chance to go somewhere else, and I told them to go since we weren't sure about our parade."

Paul said that he will be using the same parade lineup as last year and use that to contact those participants.

"We will form the parade as we had it last year. That is the simplest and easiest way it," Paul said.

John "Jack" Deesing will be the parade's grand marshal.

The tradition in Mahanoy City has been to hold a Memorial Day program on Sunday afternoon, and then conduct the parade on Monday. That will change this year.

"There is no program on Sunday," Paul said. The cancellation of the Sunday program led to rumors that the parade had also been canceled.

"The word got around everywhere," Deesing said.

"I've been getting phone calls about it," Paul said. "If we're going to do something, we've got to do it this week."

"We have to make those calls," Deesing said. "We have to find out about a color guard. We don't have any veterans to march. We're asking each fire company for one representative to form the color guard."

Paul, 79, and Deesing, 82, are planning for this year to be their last organizing the events. As the years have passed, the veterans who were involved in the planning and organizing are no longer alive or cannot help, but they have not been replaced by younger people.

"People ask me about the parade, but we don't have the people to work," Paul said. "And there aren't any replacements for those who are gone."

Paul added, "This is my last hurrah. Everybody wants the parade but nobody wants to do anything, and you just can't have that. We're just getting old. I've only been doing it about 32 or 33 years. I think I've done my share, as have other people who did that, too."

Paul basically said that the parade is not canceled until it is canceled.

"We'll give it a final shot this week, and somebody says that the parade is canceled, just say 'not yet,' " Paul said. "We'll try to do it."

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