The town where I grew up has an annual alumni parade every Memorial Day weekend for the 5 and 10 year reunion classes for the high school. They have chapel speakers in the gym, class dinners and get-togethers, and a big parade Saturday morning. Reunion classes put up displays in the local business windows - my dad's class did a fantastic display, but I didn't manage to get a picture. In the parade, the local band plays, reunion classes make floats, and local businesses and civic organizations have floats too. Some small-town things that you don't see everywhere include the fact that they still throw candy into the street for the kids, and a local tradition - the parade goes around twice - and everyone on the floats switches sides the second time around so they can see everyone in town. (Plus, main street is only 2 blocks)
But, the most unique thing about this alumni parade is that the school closed 20 years ago - a victim to an old building, in an area with decreasing enrollment. I went to the "old" high school for 7th through 9th grades, and graduated from the "new" consolidated school. When we joined up with our cross-county rivals, some of the community that comes from having a school in the middle of a town (for both towns) was lost, since the new school was as close to the "middle" of the county as possible, but the students in the area ended up really winning with a new building, new technology, all of the best teachers in the same building, and making friends with people from all over the county.
We were home for the weekend, so we took the girls in to the parade - plus, it was my dad's 55th class reunion (although he certainly wasn't going to attend any of the events, lest he ruin his perfect "no attendance" record). The girls had a great time, loved the band, the music, and especially collecting some candy!
(there was a 4-wheeler under here and they had people telling the guy driving to go left or right, rather than have a cut-out in the front for the driver to see)
They were playing "Eye of the Tiger"
The drummer in the back is my cousin, Dale
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