Clarendon offers 2 Fourth of July parades

Local events galore for Independence Day

By JASON WERMERS
The Clarendon Sun
jwermers@theitem.com

Clarendon County residents won't have to go far today to take in a parade on the Fourth of July.

In fact, they'll have two from which to choose. Both the Eagle Point and New Zion parades begin at 10 a.m.

The Eagle Point neighborhood bills its event as the world's smallest parade, but its growth over the years since its start in the 1990s could believe that fact.

"It may not be the world's smallest any more," Eagle Point resident Gloria Norris conceded. "We just enjoy the parade. The neighbors get excited and decorate everything. You never know what you're going to see decorated."

Norris said the parade has grown every year, with as many as 27 golf carts, bicycles, wagons, cars, boats or anything else on wheels making the roughly mile-long circuit through the lakeside neighborhood.

The past three or four years, a large fire truck has kicked off the procession, and Norris said she thinks the fire truck will be there again this year.

Despite how small the parade is, it draws people from as far away as Manning, she said.

At the same time as Eagle Point's processional, the "only parade that people can see coming and going" will kick off. The New Zion parade is sponsored by Black River American Legion Post 149, Black River American Legion Auxiliary Unit 149 and the New Zion community.

Anyone is invited to decorate golf carts, bicycles, cars, pickup trucks, floats, four-wheelers, tractors, trailers, motorcycles — even horses — for the parade.

"We're getting more entries every year," said Ike Gibbons, vice commander of the Black River American Legion post. "I would say that last year, we probably had 35. Everybody seems to enjoy it very much."

The route of this parade also is about a mile.

"There is no charge to enter the parade, so come and join in," Gibbons said. "And let us see your entry.

"Everybody enjoys the unusual things they see," he continued. "We have antique automobiles, horses, motorcycles and four-wheelers."

After the parade entries have passed by spectators twice, once coming and once going, a patriotic program will take place inside the Garland Fitness building.

When it's dark enough, probably about 9:30 p.m., fireworks will be shot off behind the New Zion Mini Mart on Salem Road, Gibbons said.