Crowd flocks downtown to watch annual fair parade
Clear late-summer skies and a gentle breeze greeted patrons and participants Saturday at the 73rd annual Four States Fair & Rodeo Parade in downtown Texarkana.
The cool pre-autumn air seemed to attract local and area residents, who assembled all along the parade route just before mid-morning under the bright, cloudless skies.
The previous Friday evening’s football win by the Arkansas High School Razorbacks all but guaranteed the school’s marching band, cheerleaders and pep squads a vanguard position in the parade.
Chants of “Go Hogs” became the prominent refrain in the nearly hourlong procession, particularly from the North Heights Junior High School pep squad. The school’s junior Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps lent a more patriotic flair to the event, with U.S. flags swirling in the wind
Just before the parade, local resident Jessie Bias said she liked the school bands and the horses the best.
“Me too,” said Bias’ 5-year-old daughter, Alexandra.
For Texas-side resident Tom McLeod, this year’s parade marked the first time he got to participate as a recent Texarkana, Ark., Civilian Police Training Academy Alumni Association graduate. McLeod worked as a volunteer traffic overseer and safety enforcer.
McLeod, whose watch area included the intersection of Olive and East Board streets, said the junction is one of the tightest turns the parade has to make.
“This intersection is where the parade has to make one of its sharpest turns at one of the most crowded and high-occupancy viewing areas of the parade,” McLeod said. “I think that people are called on to help other people, and … (we’re here) to help provide the police department with some reinforcement personnel.”
The parade also featured local radio station advertising vans, which played music of the variety that their individual stations offered—from country and western to soul and hiphop.
Members of the Arkansasside Shriners Club provided some semiperilous entertainment by zig-zagging around each other in their battery-operated, single-occupant minicars and go-karts.
Commercial floats such as Archery Outfitters Pro Shop’s provided artful outdoors scenery, complete with balloons and steamers trailing behind.
For Redwater, Texas, resident Christy Harrison, who’s attended the parades since her 11-year-old daughter, Kiley, was born, said she likes seeing the vintage automobiles the best, but Kiley had something else in mind.
“I like the candy,” she said. The fair continues throughout the week.