UNIONVILLE - What started six years ago on a whim is steadily becoming a tradition as the Unionville Fourth of July parade was held for the sixth year last week.
Organizers Tom and Linda Johnson headed the parade on their Kubota backhoe along with this year's Grand Marshal, Brenda Chapman.
Chapman, who lives in Washoe Valley and has been a friend of the Johnson family for many years, said she was the start of first happenings for the parade.
"I'm the first Grand Marshal under 80 and the first black one," Chapman said.
"The first and the last," Tom Johnson joked.
"No, I'm coming back when I'm 80," Chapman bantered back.
"There's never a dull moment at the Unionville parade," observed Lovelock Review-Miner columnist Roy Bale, who was also present and probably instigating Johnson and Chapman's teasing of each other.
The parade started in 2006, when the Johnsons and some friends were doing some renovation work on the old Unionville School House, which was known as the Buena Vista School, back in the day.
The group of friends began talking about how that year was the first time they had not attended a parade on Fourth of July. Well that was all it took. The friends found what they could to decorate their ATV's and paraded up the one-lane dirt road shouting "Happy Fourth of July" to anyone who happened to be outside.
The tradition began with the Johnson family and friends who come almost every year; some from as far away as Colorado and Texas. This year the parade was a little smaller than past years. Tom Johnson attributed the smaller participation to the holiday falling in the middle of the week.
"I had a lot of people calling and asking if we were going to do it on Saturday, but I said 'no, it's on the Fourth of July,'" Johnson said.
Although the overall participation in the parade was lower, the local resident participation was higher. Many local residents on horse back, ATV's and other vehicles, including the Unionville Fire Department, paraded up Unionville's one road from the school house to the park and back, waving at parade watchers.
After the parade the Johnsons extended their hospitality to everyone with a barbecue at the school house.
[[In-content Ad]]
