Parade a highlight of holiday events

Brisk temperatures in the 30s couldn’t keep people away from the annual Veterans Day parade Saturday morning.

Clad in coats and wrapped in blankets, hundreds of people lined the Main Street parade route in downtown Ottawa.

“I was amazed how well the turnout for the parade was,” Harold Mayes, an organizer of the Ottawa Veterans Day celebration, said.

Sherry Wright, parade organizer, said the parade had 320 entries before it started, but more members of the Patriot Guard arrived which put entries at sabout 350.

Mayes said he believed the cold weather affected attendance at the afternoon activities at Forest Park, but didn’t hurt the parade.

“It’s a little chilly today, but everyone’s having a real good time,” J.P. Stewart, actor and U.S. Marine Corps veteran of the Gulf War, said. Saturday

Stewart, a Parsons native and guest speaker during the parade ceremony, spoke about Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Stewart said his great-uncle was killed by a Japanese bomb right after finishing breakfast.

Stewart’s speech was cued by a flyover of two PT-19 Fairchild planes from the World War II era and two L-19 Cessna Birdog planes from the Vietnam era. The planes had flown in from the Heart of America Wing of the Commemorative Air Force, Olathe, Sgt. Tim Reed said.

On the ground, motorcycles revved their engines as the Patriot Guard served as the grand marshals of the parade.

“I thought it was touching,” Christy Doty, Ottawa, said about having the Patriot Guard present.

“It was awesome,” her daughter, Moriah, 8, said.

Doty, her daughter and her son, Tyler, 15, were missing part of her other daughter’s middle school basketball tournament to see the parade.

“It was worth it,” she said.