Rain can't halt Fort Ligonier Days parade

Sandi Wilkins Wallace knows first-hand how big a deal it is to march down Main Street during the Fort Ligonier Days parade.

Wallace, 64, moved to Florida as an adult, but as a kid who grew up in Ligonier she marched the mile-long parade route as a member of the Ligonier high school band and later as the the 1976 homecoming queen.

“I try to come back every year, ” Wallace said. “I remember seeing family cheer me on. They were sitting right over there on the back of a truck.”

Wallace, along with her sister Debbie Welch, 70, of Greensburg, were among the many who braved Saturday’s rain and chill to watch the annual parade that serves as the centerpiece of Fort Ligonier Days festival.

They parked their chairs under a roof along Main Street on Friday night, across from the reviewing stand, to ensure they had good view of the parade while staying dry. The sisters, who grew up in Ligonier, said attending the parade has been a family tradition.

“When we were young it was a colonial celebration. Every year we’d go to the Five and Dime and choose a print dress. It was a real fashion show. This was a charming, a quaint event,” Wallace said.

When the weather is right, the parade attracts as many as 40,000 watchers, Fort Ligonier Days chairman Jack McDowell said. Rain lessened the crowds Saturday morning, but thousands still turned out to see the marching bands and floats.

The parade, which has been held during all 63 Fort Ligonier Day celebrations, has never been canceled because of weather, McDowell said. There have been delays because of high winds and thunder but, other than the covid-year of 2020, the marchers have made their way from one end of town to the other.

Saturday was no exception.

“Sometimes, a little rain makes it a little better. When she (the weather) gets nasty, you can’t do anything about it,” McDowell said.

Parade chairman Tom Stablein said 85 units, including bands from Butler, Franklin Regional and Ligonier Valley high schools, along with 10 floats, Fort Ligonier reenactors and civic organizations were scheduled to march. The weather led to a few cancellations, including a popular Percheron horse team, but officials still described the march as one of the largest parades conducted annually in Westmoreland County.

“We’re not backing out because of the rain. We’ve got rain gear,” Butler High School band director Jeff Kroner said. “We’ve come here every year since the late 1990s.”

Stablein’s brother Bill has been a member of the Fort Ligonier Days organizing committee for nearly a half century and said the parade has been a fixture since the event started in 1960.

“It has grown and grown and grown. So many families have parents still living here, and this is when the kids come home,” Bill Stablein said.

Kierston Maryott of Murrysville bundled up in rain gear as she waited for her son, a junior percussionist in the Franklin Regional Marching Band, to pass by.

“We are excited to see this. We’re not complaining about the weather because the crowds are down,” Maryott said.

Fort Ligonier Days continues Sunday, starting with a 5K run at 8:30 a.m. The closing ceremony is at 5 p.m. Find more details online at fortligonierdays.com.