Director sweet on parade’s homey feel
POST FALLS – Every year after Easter, Kerri Thoreson goes bargain hunting for candy.
She has a city full of sweet tooths to satisfy.
Thoreson stuffs her finds in a closet at home up until the first weekend in June, when she breaks out her goodies for Post Falls Days’ Home Sweet Home parade.
It’s a tradition Thoreson has maintained since she began directing and organizing the parade 15 years ago.
Thoreson is known as the “candy queen,” with 40 to 50 pounds of treats stowed in her golf cart to dispense to well-behaved youngsters along the parade route.
She is also the woman with the whistle, marking the start of the annual community parade.
And she is the boss behind the scenes, making sure every llama, clown and marching band member is lined up and ready for the show.
“This parade is one of the last things that is small-town,” said Thoreson, who has lived in Post Falls since the mid-1980s. “It’s a real community parade.”
On Saturday, Thoreson will patrol Seltice Way along the approximately milelong parade route crammed with spectators. The parade, which will begin at 11 a.m., typically draws a couple of thousand fans and 75 to 80 entrants, including marching bands, livestock, classic cars and fire engines.
It’s one of the few parades that encourage participants to rain candy on the crowd, Thoreson said.
“It’s like trick-or-treat. Kids bring their treat bags and fill them up. … There is candy to be had,” said Thoreson, 55, who works for local publishing and marketing firm Kagey Co., previously was executive director of the Post Falls Chamber of Commerce and is the daughter of noted late politician Ron Rankin.
She says her favorite part of the parade is blowing the whistle to start things off. She typically has a stockpile of whistles that she passes out to kids, too.
At the end, she and the rest of her parade committee from the Chamber of Commerce serve as the parade’s caboose.
Thoreson said she plans to continue directing the parade “as long as it’s fun. And I haven’t had any indication that it won’t be.”
She and her family attend parades wherever they can, she said.
“There’s no point to a parade when you stop and think about it,” Thoreson said. “And that’s precisely what I love about it. We do a lot of purposeful things in our lives. And a parade really exists just for the fun of it.”
Thoreson’s notable memories from directing the Post Falls Days parades include:
““Sweet” parade: The parade began including candy about a dozen years ago, when now state Sen. Jim Hammond, R-Post Falls, a longtime parade committee member, insisted the event be sweetened, Thoreson said.
That’s how the parade earned its lasting name, Home Sweet Home, for the pounds and pounds of candy showered on spectators every first Saturday in June.
“Unmounted Mounties: A group of Royal Canadian Mounted Police agreed to ride their horses in the Post Falls parade a few years ago. The Mounties had a problem crossing the border, though, and their animals were held up in customs. The group came anyway.
“We had the unmounted Mounties,” Thoreson joked.
“Birthday bash: Thoreson’s husband, Bert, serves on the parade committee and “does the heavy lifting,” Thoreson said. One year, his birthday fell on parade day. It didn’t change their plans.
“I told him, ‘Guess what I got for your birthday? A parade,’ ” Thoreson said.
“Don’t rain on my parade: “I remember the first time it rained on our parade,” Thoreson said. It was two or three years ago, and “I was so bummed. It was so cold and so wet,” she said.
Thoreson was certain no one would show up. But when the parade participants took the first turn onto Seltice Way, they saw the street clogged with spectators.
“I was so grateful,” she said. “I know Post Falls does love a parade.”
Contact staff writer Hope Brumbach at 765-7124 or by e-mail at hopeb@spokesman.com.