(La Porte, IN) - A flyover by two A-10 Warthogs opened Tuesday’s 77th annual La Porte 4th of July Parade. It was the perfect day for a parade, and Lincolnway was packed with spectators.
The military flyover kept everyone in suspense by arriving a few minutes behind schedule. Parade organizers said the A-10s may have been fashionably late because they had eight other parades to buzz. Nonetheless, La Porte Kiwanis Club members, who ran the parade for its third straight year, breathed a sigh of relief when the planes finally flew over and the parade began.
Nearly 30 more entries than last year filled the parade route, and organizers said the spectating crowd seemed larger than in recent years. One of the Kiwanis organizers, Joy Zigler, suggested that the bigger turnout could be a COVID bounce-back.
“I don’t know if it’s because we’ve got a couple of years under our belt, post-COVID,” she said. “I think that’s part of it. I think everyone’s out-and-about and back at it.”
Zigler added that a lot of civic groups that often participate in the parade are now rebounding from their numbers dropping during the pandemic. “I think they’ve have time to build and increase that and get the participation back,” she said. “A lot of work goes into this.”
The parade featured five bands, eleven fire departments, and multiple other first responders, as well as crowd favorites like Purdue’s Boilermaker Express, Mangled Axles Jeep Krew, and the Guardian Riders. Six grand marshals, all of them La Porte success stories, shared special dignitary honors.
As parade floats filed onto Lincolnway, Mayor Tom Dermody, as always, expressed his La Porte pride. “We have so many special people that make this community what it is,” Dermody said.
“It just doesn’t get better than this. It’s why we’re the [state] capital for the day."
