The Trojan Pride Marching Band (above) makes its way down Main Street during the annual Sparta Christmas Parade, which was held Saturday morning in spite of unusually cold and windy conditions. In the photo at left, members of the Rainbow of Hope Cancer Coalition ride on a commercial float, one of three in the parade. As many as 16 of the community and church groups that usually enter floats did not participate this year due to the weather conditions.

Parade endures frigid Saturday

With icy roads, high winds and frigid temperatures to deal with, getting the annual Christmas parade off the ground was more difficult than usual this year.

At parade time, the temperature was about 24 degrees and the wind was gusting up to 20 miles per hour. Even so, a good crowd turned out along Main Street to watch the annual event.

The morning started off with a slippery entrance to both Charles Street and Trojan Avenue. The parade entries usually line up in the parking lot behind Sparta Elementary School; however, a light snowfall and freezing of moisture on roadways made the entrance to the parking lot slippery.

"When the first commercial float arrived, the driver said he was worried that the others might not make it," said Sparta Revitalization Committee President Sandy Rost, one of the parade's organizers. She said the organizers were also concerned about vehicles being able to stop as they attempted to enter Main Street (U.S. 21) to proceed down the parade route. Most of Main Street was completely clear, but the entrances to several side streets were icy in the early morning hours. At that time, there was some talk of postponing the event, she said.

"Once you have the commercial floats there, you don't want to cancel it," Rost noted. "Some of our entries weren't able to come out, but we do appreciate all those who did make the effort to take part in the parade."

Rost said the town's maintenance crew came to the rescue about two hours before the event, applying melting agents to the streets.

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