Since 1985 the city of Bowling Green has held an annual Community Holiday Parade on the weekend before Thanksgiving. The first Parade traveled only a few blocks - from State Home Savings (now Key Bank) to the Cla-Zel Theatre. It had only 6 units, including the Bowling Green High School band and cheerleaders, the Jeepsters, and the North Baltimore High School band, and it starred Santa Claus.
Joan Gordon was the director of the Bowling Green Chamber of Commerce during the parade's beginning years, and was also the 2007 parade's Grand Marshall. Joan recalls the highlight of the first parade was a free movie at the Clazel theatre for all the children.
The parade continued under the Chamber's charge in 1986 and 1987 and added a few more units. Uhlman’s Department Store took over the planning of the parade for 1988 and 1989 intending to make it a much larger downtown event. The size increased to over 60 units and included a competition where bands would compete for scholarship awards. The event was promoted as “Holiday Parade and Marching Band Competition”.
However, by 1990 the event had become too big for Ulhmans' to manage, so the Chamber stepped forward again to assume guardianship of the parade. The theme for the year was “The Sounds of Christmas” and the parade drew over 60 units including a number of marching bands.
Another change in 1990 concerned the line up procedure used to get the parade units ready in the morning. According to Gordon, “units originally gathered at the high school parking lot and were very unorganized.” It was decided to use the east and west side streets off North Main Street as “bays” for lining the units up. Each bay would empty, falling in behind as the parade processed southward down Main St. from Poe Rd. The process worked great and has been used for every parade since.
