Irish Spring Organizers Hope Warm Weather Holds For St. Patrick’s Parade

In Dublin’s four-day St. Patrick’s romp, there are flame eaters, unicycling clowns and lots of drinking and hollering.

In Spokane, the green beer will be flowing in bars on Saturday morning, but the parade itself is much tamer than what goes on in Ireland.

As always, there will be bands, drill teams, classic car clubs, even performers imitating vintage cartoon characters George Jetson and his dog, Astro.

But beyond the usual hopes of everything running smoothly, organizers have set a modest goal this year.

They’re begging the weather gods for a reprieve from last year’s dumping of snow and hand-numbing 20-degree temperatures.

“It’s going to be warm this year, it’s going to be warm this year,” said Shiloh Welk, a volunteer parade organizer with the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick.

Besides the weather, the only thing changing for the 20th anniversary of Spokane’s parade is the route. It takes a slight detour downtown because of construction, but still begins and ends at the Convention Center.

Organizers predict the parade will feature nearly 200 entries, a record high. In a typical year, they hope to draw 140,000 people, but last year there were less than one-fourth that many.

The parade starts at noon Saturday.

Over the years, the parade has undergone major changes. Some people have complained that the event has morphed from a celebration of Irish heritage into an ostentatious display of commercialism.

Mike Ellis, promotions director for KZZU and KXLY’s family of radio stations, said recently his stations would have no entries this year. “It’s a shameless, shoddy attempt by the radio stations to take advantage of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade,” he said.

Besides the advertising jockeying, the celebration itself is designed to be more orderly.

Drinking alcohol at the parade is prohibited now, and so is throwing candy to kids. Candy is handed out instead of letting kids jump into a free-for-all wrestling match for goodies.

It wasn’t always that way.

When it came to alcohol, “they (organizers) used to just look the other way,” said Don Torbenson, general manager at Cyrus O’Leary’s, 516 W. Main.

The parade’s grand marshal is Jack Stockton, father of NBA star John Stockton, and owner of Jack and Dan’s Tavern.

Bill Flanigan, former president of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, will be honored as Irish Man of the Year, and Lynette Costello, a member of the Friendly Sons, is Irish Woman of the Year. The Irish Colleen - a non-royal, Irish version of a princess - is Sarah Atkinson, a senior at University High School.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Map: St. Patrick’s Day Parade route

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: MARCHING ORDERS Parade entry forms can be picked up at TCI, 1717 E. Buckeye; KXLY, 500 W. Boone; and The Ram restaurant, 908 N. Howard. Anyone is welcome to march. The phone number for the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick is 327-5329. Entry forms will be accepted on the day of the parade.