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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Mom Passes Parade Baton To Her Son

We bought a pile of shrimp from a street vendor, and then sat down at a shady spot in the Cody (Wyo.) City Park.

“Hey,” I said, looking around at our little patch of lawn. “Didn’t we get married here?”

My wife, Carol, thought for a second.

“Well,” she said, “I believe we had our reception here.”

“Yes,” I said, peeling a shrimp. “I knew it looked familiar.”

This stunning outbreak of deja vu in the Kershner family was due entirely to Spokane’s Lewis and Clark High School Marching Band.

The what?

Permit me to explain. The Lewis and Clark High School Marching Band (“The Fightin’ Louisiana Purchase Explorers” as they are known, but only by me) occasionally goes on a summertime jaunt to a parade.

Some bands go to places like Disneyland or Hawaii. But not this band. This band went to one of the least-populated corners of one of the least-populated states. This band went to the Cody Fourth of July Stampede Parade.

Band director Larry Jay had three good reasons for choosing the Stampede Parade. He used to live in Wyoming; he has a strong interest in our Western heritage; and he has impeccable taste in small cowboy-oriented tourist towns.

Mr. Jay’s decision was a stroke of pure serendipity for our family. For one thing, Carol and I used to live in Cody. For another, our son, Mike, is a percussionist in the band.

So when we heard about this trip, we knew we were fated to be one of those families who tag along behind the band buses and generally embarrass the heck out of their teenagers.

We knew we had to do it, not just because it was Cody, but because it was the Fourth of July Stampede Parade. Our roots run deeply in this parade. As a cub reporter and photographer for the weekly Cody Enterprise, I was privileged to cover this parade for three straight years.

And I hated every minute of it. Covering the Stampede Parade was not exactly what I had in mind when I entered the sacred profession of journalist/defender of democracy/ Jimmy Olsen look-alike. Covering the Stampede Parade consisted mostly of standing out in the middle of the town’s main street with a telephoto lens, trying to capture that rare usable shot in which a horse is not relieving itself.

It also consisted of standing in the rodeo arena, trying to wipe bull slobber off a Nikon lens. And finally, it consisted of spending three hours on the phone the next week trying to explain how on God’s green earth I left the Cody Country Cloggin’ Cowgirls out of the Best Tap Ensemble awards list.

Carol, born and raised in Cody, has even stronger Stampede Parade roots. She has actually marched in it. Granted, she’s a bit fuzzy on the details. She can’t quite specify whether she marched as a member of the Cody Broncettes Drill Squad, Pep Squad, Flag Squad, Baton Squad, or Honor Squad. It could have been the Bomb Squad or the Mod Squad, for all the information she’s giving out.

Somehow, I suspect it was all of the above. In fact, I also suspect that she used to tie a bonnet on her kitty, and pull it down main street in her Radio Flyer wagon. It’s that kind of parade.

Or at least it used to be. As we found out last week, the parade is now a bit more sophisticated. It included over 130 entries, which doesn’t count any little girls pulling their cats (those are all in the kid’s parade now). The big parade has real floats, lots of horses, and four or five marching bands.

There was a band from Minnesota and another from Saskatchewan, for heaven’s sake. I’ll bet you never knew the Cody Stampede Parade was such a coveted marching-band destination.

Carol got a little bit misty-eyed as she watched her strapping 15-yearold son marching down the same street that she once marched, being waved at by many of the same people, dodging the same road apples. (Well, not the exact same ones).

Something - call it the Stampede Parade heritage - was passed from mother to son that day. For Carol, it was the closing of a circle.

Which is no small feat for a parade that goes in a straight line.

, DataTimes