Saturday’s Hillsboro Lighted Christmas Parade will follow a different path than other parades in recent years, mostly to make the route more easy for walkers by avoiding the hill heading east on West Main Street.
The parade will begin and end at the Highland County Fairgrounds, and at its beginning will follow Elm Street, as usual. But then the route changes. The parade will not turn off Elm Street until it reaches Walnut Street, where it will turn left. It will follow Walnut Street until it makes a left turn on High Street, will take another left turn onto Main Street, then will turn right onto North West Street. It will follow North West Street for several blocks before turning left onto John Street and heading back to the fairgrounds.
““We are going to change the route because we noticed that some of the walkers had a hard time getting up the big hill in front of Great Scott, which put a long gap between a lot of our floats,” Jennifer Cundiff-Maurer, parade coordinator for the Hillsboro Uptown Business Association and city of Hillsboro, previously said.
The parade starts at 6 p.m. The theme is “Christmas Toyland” and the grand marshals will Tom Horst, a former county sheriff and commissioner, and his wife Margaret.
Snowflake Pageant Queen Isabella Racine will be the queen of the parade. Snowflake Pageant winners Presley Haynes, Boston Nartker, Lynley Bailey, Knox Haynes, Braylah Wells, Gage Haynes and Saige Igo will also be leaders of the parade.
Santa Clause, of course, will be part of the parade. Highland County Sheriff Donne Barrera and local first responders such as law enforcement and fire department personnel will participate.
Maurer said there will be activities in the uptown area following the parade.
Those interested in participating in the parade can get an application at Cundiff Flowers or contact Cundiff-Maurer at [email protected].
