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Croaker Festival 2016 Parade
Volunteerism, Brexit, The Pig
July 4, 2016

O
riental’s Croaker Festival is named for a fish, but it was a porcine character who drew the most cheers during the parade on Saturday. Mr. Pig, mascot of the Piggly Wiggly stores, walked the Broad-Hodges-South route along with the managers for the Oriental store that is slated to open in about 3 weeks.

With the Piggly Wiggly opening later this month and giving Oriental a full-service grocery once again, the Pig was met with applause on the parade route.

By some accounts, Oriental’s 2016 Croaker Festival Parade was one of the longest parades ever for the first-Saturday-in-July festival. It lasted nearly an hour, from the color guard setting out from Ragan Road on to Broad Street to the last of the 126 entries arriving at Lou Mac Park.

croakerfest Parade 2016
Lady Liberty, Uncle Sam won for Most Patriotic Couple. Their float also featured a coupling of older and more recent history..
Grand Marshals Fay Bond and Carol McAdoo, of the Oriental Woman’s Club, which is celebrating 100 years as a service organization this year. In honor of that, volunteerism was the theme of the 2016 festival.

The theme for this 36th Croakerfest – and its parade – was Embrace Your Volunteer Spirit, a tribute to the Oriental Woman’s Club reaching the century mark this year.

croakerfest Parade 2016
Another riff on the festival’s ‘Embrace Your Volunteer Spirit’ theme: a Jefferson Airplane song as entry in the parade.
croakerfest Parade 2016
Oriental Mayor Sally Belangia.
croakerfest Parade 2016
Bubbles from the bank float.
Kids were not the only ones who scored some candy thrown from the floats.

Many more photos ahead. (Click on an image to make it bigger, and to start slideshow.)

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croakerfest Parade 2016
Croaker Queen
And the winners are… (as judged by Ladies of the Neuse)
Miss Minnow winner bestows candy to the crowd.
croakerfest Parade 2016
Chopper from a helicopter veterans group did the parade by land, not air. It rode in, rather than rotored.
croakerfest Parade 2016
A Seussian theme had kids reading books on the float while books – instead of candy – were given to other children along the parade route.
croakerfest Parade 2016
Savannah Rhudy was more fascinated by a book on the Dr. Seuss float than by the parade prep going on around her.

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croakerfest Parade 2016
Flags in hair, and waves to the Studebaker.
croakerfest Parade 2016
Truitt and Cindy Ray in a Studebaker. Its shiny sides reflected both the spectators and the effort to restore the Holt’s Chapel Community Center, which had been a Rosenwald school
croakerfest Parade 2016
A contestant in the Croaker Queen pageant.
A wave to the sidelines.
Keirah Dixon, one of the contestants in the Miss Minnow pageant.

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croakerfest Parade 2016
Amid the blare and honking of sirens. a fire vehicle passes the harbor and the Bean.
croakerfest Parade 2016
Mermaid.
Pamlico Community Band’s Croaker Band.
Horns generally aren’t heard on Broad Street, except when the Croaker band passes by.
Other than some bicycles, this vintage Crosley was one of the narrower vehicles in the parade.
Neuter is not a car model. The car was the Pamlico Animal Welfare Society’s entry.
(Click on an image to make it bigger, and to start slideshow.)

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croakerfest Parade 2016
Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Nancy Piner got thru the parade with a water sptitzer.
Topical signage.
croakerfest Parade 2016
Half of a Bike Friday crew who took a Saturday morning spin in the parade.
croakerfest Parade 2016
Mark Hoff and the vintage Econoline.
Shriners.
croakerfest Parade 2016
One of several tractors in the parade.

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Miss Minnow pageant contestant.

A reminder of another big day in Oriental.

croakerfest Parade 2016

Dottie and Dick Osmun.

croakerfest Parade 2016
Which porch? The banner crew did a full 360.
Pamlico Community College.
(Click on an image to make it bigger, and to start slideshow.) [page] croakerfest Parade 2016
From the History of Flags float, some anachronistic tossing of Tootsie Rolls to the crowd.
Grace Evans.
croakerfest Parade 2016
One of the more enthusiastic candy throwers rests his arm for a moment.

Enthusiasm wasn’t just for the kids on floats.

The Color Guard leading the parade.
A Shetland pony.

(Click on an image to make it bigger, and to start slideshow.)

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Shriner Cooligans.
croakerfest Parade 2016
Cooligan.
A local crew rode their motor bikes.
croakerfest Parade 2016
OTown.
Cooligan.
Pamlico County Shriners are professional mourners.
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A new Shriner troupe spun out.
Sporty cars.
croakerfest Parade 2016
Cub Scouts.
A license tag on one parade entry was apparently not connected to another parade entry linking Brexit to the breakaway initiated on July 4, 1776.
Station 19 firetruck.
Never underestimate the work load of the Parade Meister.

Posted Monday July 4, 2016 by Ben Casey


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