Iron Springs parade and barbecue has turned into annual event

It is time for some fun for the hamlet of Iron Springs. The community along Highway 25 between Picture Butte and Turin will hold its annual parade and barbecue on Saturday.

“We always have it the first Saturday after Labour Day,” said John Heersink, founder and leader of the Iron Springs Parade committee. “When we first started out, we thought about having it in the summer, but you know every weekend there's so much going on.”

Celebrations begin with the parade at 6 p.m. and the barbecue starts at 7 p.m. Due to the recent fire ban, there will be no fireworks this year.

However, there will be a bouncy castle, horseshoes, a tug-of-war, and a homemade pie baking contest with prizes. The barbecue costs $5 per person.

The parade came to life in 2012 when Heersink saw a man and his two daughters and the girls were both riding their bikes.

Heersink said he started to chat with them and they were talking about decorating their bikes, so he jokingly said that they should have a parade. With the girl and her sister being interested, Heersink and the two girls put on the first parade in Iron Springs.

“We had a very short parade; we didn't have anything other than the parade,” Heersink said. “We didn’t know what to expect. It was short, but we had about 60 people watching. And then for the fun of it we decided to go around the block again. One of our trademarks is to take the parade around the block twice.”

A committee consisting of locals plans the parade and Heersink says the parade, barbecue and other activities have no specific budget, but they have had food donations and monetary donations from people.

The current Iron Springs Parade committee consists of Tony Ankermann, Bryan and Hanneke Vande Munt, Larry and Barb Maljaars, and Heersink.

“Once you start planning, you find out about how much work it is and how much time it’s going to take,” Heersink said.

Heersink says the area is very rural and he thinks probably half the crowd from the previous year will show up to this year’s parade, but there will also be new people.

“Before computers and needing to run to Lethbridge for everything, people would not travel very far and the community probably meant a lot more to them in terms of social events than it does now,” Heersink said.

“I would personally like to see two or three events here but it would take a lot of work and I don’t want to be saddled with that. I don’t think the committee wants to be saddled with that either, but people who might be interested in organizing those things would be great at doing that.”