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BEACON PHOTO/MARSHA MCLAUGHLIN
You're a mean one — The Grinch is busy stealing Christmas during the 61st annual Jaycees Christmas parade.
(Click here to see photos from the parade and of the parade marshal.)
BEACON PHOTO/ROGER GILMORE
No place in parade — This anti-Obama vehicle was denied entrance to the Jaycees Christmas Parade for not meeting a requirement for decoration. Event organizers said the parade is intended to be a heartwarming community event focused on children and bringing people together — not a place to conduct a political smear campaign. It’s still unclear who attempted to enter the truck in the parade.
BEACON PHOTO/MARSHA MCLAUGHLIN
He’s the man — It was about “dark-thirty” Dec. 5, when Abie Levesque knocked on Pastor Mike Modica’s door and told him he was this year’s parade marshal. Modica is pastor of First Assembly-DeLand.
BEACON PHOTO/MARSHA MCLAUGHLIN
Santa Claus — Santa Claus rode into town at the end of the parade.
Fight, controversial entry don’t mar spirit of event
posted Dec 10, 2009 - 12:38:41pm
The weather cleared just in time for the 61st annual DeLand Jaycees Christmas Parade Dec. 5.
Led by Parade Marshal Mike Modica, pastor of First Assembly-DeLand, the parade brought the Christmas season to Woodland Boulevard with more than 120 floats, demonstrations, vehicles, marchers, musicians and just a tiny bit of controversy.
(Click here to see photos from the parade and of the parade marshal.)
Jaycees Parade Co-chairman Mark Thompson said there was a great showing of people, and he said a lot of folks deserve a lot of credit for the success of the event.
Thompson reported the DeLand Police Department was at its finest, and said the city staff was nothing short of fantastic to work with.
Also, he said, DeLand Elks Lodge No. 1463 was a real behind-the-scenes contributor.
Thompson explained the Jaycees are a leadership association for young people. As those young men and women get older, they move on to other civic leadership organizations, such as Kiwanis, Rotary and Elks. Thompson and Parade Co-chairman Matt Pieper both joined the Elks.
“Naturally, we went to the Elks and asked for help with the Christmas parade,” Thompson said. “Big kudos to the DeLand Elks.”
This year, the Jaycees made some changes in the parade to encourage a higher proportion of floats.
“We ended up with more floats this year,” Thompson said. “We limited the number of commercial automobiles, and we raised the rates for automobiles.”
Previously, a business could enter up to 14 automobiles as one entry. Now, there is a limit of four.
The Jaycees also worked to untangle the end of the parade. In the past, snarls in disbanding caused the parade to stop farther up the road. The new procedures seemed to help move the parade along more quickly.
“We started at 5:30 p.m. on the nose,” Thompson said. “It was 8:50 p.m. when Santa passed me.”
Thompson and Pieper directed traffic at the end of the parade, by Melching Field at Conrad Park.
“Disbanding went flawlessly,” Thompson said. “There was little to no backup. Everyone was very cooperative.”
While Christmas was in the air, and the magic of the parade flowed through DeLand, a few folks had a few un-Christmas-like moments.
A large-scale fight broke out on South Woodland Boulevard near Checkers during the parade. According to one police report, the fight involved approximately 100 parade spectators.
DeLand Police Sgt. John Anderson said the fight wasn’t a riot or a brawl, and, really, it wasn’t that big a deal.
“It was just a bunch of teenagers being stupid,” Anderson said. “I think this is being overplayed.”
The DeLand Police were right there, Anderson said, and the fight didn’t stop the parade.
Thompson agreed the fight was barely a blip on the radar.
“The only thing affected was the officers had to leave their posts to handle this,” he said.
Thompson commended the DeLand Police Department and the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office for their efforts.
The fight wasn’t the only Grinch-like hitch.
Up the road, on North Woodland Boulevard, a truck plastered with anti-Obama propaganda was disqualified as a parade entry.
Jaycees volunteer Brenda Knight said, unfortunately, some entrants just didn’t meet the qualifications. That vehicle was one of them, but not the only one.
“This is not the time or place for a political debate,” Knight said. “It states on the parade application that the entry must be decorated and that no candy can be thrown. It states that we reserve the right to remove an entry from the parade.”
The disqualified vehicle was decorated only in political slurs, with nary a wreath or Christmas light.
Ownership of the vehicle is currently a mystery. Knight said she believed the white pickup was entry No. 90, which was listed as The Bible Baptist Church.
But Bible Baptist Church Pastor James Knox said the anti-Obama truck wasn’t entered by his church.
“Nope. We walked, and made it through to the end without a problem,” Knox said.
Aside from a few noncompliant entries, Knight said, the quality of the entries was fantastic.
“We had some wonderful entries,” she said. “There were some beautiful floats.”
Knight said the parade was a wonderful event, and she enjoyed volunteering on the committee. It’s something that brings joy to an entire community — and that’s the thing to remember.
“The bottom line is we do this for the children,” Knight said. “It’s to bring the community together and celebrate Christmas.”
The parade is paid for through donations, fundraisers and volunteer labor.
“We invite the community to participate in the event,” Thompson said.
Thompson said this year’s parade was virtually seamless, and feedback has been positive.
“It went quite well,” he said. “We had a really good showing. We’ve had great feedback.”
Thompson is already looking forward to next year.
“I’ll see you the first Saturday of December,” he said.
Reader Comments
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Let me make it absolutely clear - the truck mentioned in the article was NOT with the Bible Baptist Church group. No one at Bible Baptist knew the folks with the truck or had any connection with them at all. In fact, I heard one person from Bible Baptist say, "I hope people don't think they're with us", referring to that truck.
Bible Baptist Church doesn't do politics.
I saw the truck and stopped to say "hello" to the folks in the truck. Again, I agree with those who pulled it from the parade as not meeting reasonable criteria for a "Christmas parade float", but for The Beacon writer to use such heavily-loaded language is a real disappointment to me. Given that kind of reporting, it is no wonder that the Reader Comments refers to them as "haters".
If journalists are going to claim the mantle of independent providers of news, then they need to quit being constant cheerleaders for Obama by demonizing those who do not happily go along with Obama's "Hope and Change". The "established media" does not have a monopoly on political speech - something that, no doubt, prompted the rapid growth of Tea Party groups.
Yeah, you'd hate to miss the Christmas parade downtown.
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