March 11, 2015 at 4:16 p.m.
Annual St. Patrick's Day Parade to take place Saturday
Annual St. Patrick's Day Parade to take place Saturday
The fourth annual St. Patrick's Day parade will take place at 1:30 p.m. in downtown Rhinelander.
Organizer Jack Winkler said he expects a great turnout.
"We'll probably have about 60 to 70 floats in the parade this year," he said. "That's between businesses and individual representatives. It will start at the police station and continue down Brown Street to the corner of South Anderson Street. Anyone can be in the parade that wants to. It can be a business, a club or an individual. We have plenty of people walking along dressed up in Irish costumes."
With a few years of history now behind the event, Winkler said its growth has been a welcome surprise. About twice as many people take part in the parade now than they did in its first year.
"We started out four years ago with about 30 floats," he said. "It started on a whim. We had kind of talked about doing it for about 10 years, and finally we sat down together and decided to do it. There was a group of us, Tim Phelen, David O'Melia, Pat Deau, Bill Barnes, myself and a couple other people. We talked about it long enough and decided to get it off the ground and get it going."
Forecasts are predicting cooperative weather and that should make for an enjoyable event, but Winkler said nothing could top the parade's very first installment.
"It won't be as nice as our first one," he said. "We had a 75-degree day that first year. It was just beautiful. The last two have been a little cold and windy, but this year they're predicting about 45 degrees. It might be a little cloudy but it should be a good day."
Coupled with the parade is the annual bar crawl. Those who wish to take part must buy a $5 card from any of the participating businesses. At each business they visit they'll receive a stamp on the card.
The stops include Big Daddy's, the Claridge, the Hext Theater, Quade's Place, Pat's Tavern, the Knight Gallery, Northern Coffee Haus, Rhinelander Cafe & Pub, Sunset Junction, Bucketheads, Brokers, Northwestern, Moonlighting, Sackett's and Thunder Road. Winkler said with so many businesses involved, they had to stretch the bar crawl over a number of days.
"We went around to all the establishments in downtown Rhinelander," he said. "Almost everyone is involved. We don't want people to drive, that's why we've stretched it out over four days. It costs people $5 apiece to enter and we're asking people to hit as many of the establishments as they can."
The Pub Crawl starts on Saturday and runs until the evening of St. Patrick's Day. Winkler said the best part is that it's all for a good cause.
"We're raising money for the Safe Ride Home program," he said. "We're going to have a 50/50 raffle with the money raised by the $5 and the rest will go to prizes. You don't have to be present to win, but you have to fill out the ticket with your name, address and phone number. We're going to do the drawing at Big Daddy's at 8 p.m. on March 17. There will be a first-, second- and third-place drawing and we'll also do an attendance drawing separate from that."
Now that all the planning is behind him, Winkler said he can't wait for the big day. With a favorable forecast and record participation, this year's parade should be the best yet.
"I hope everyone comes out and enjoys the fun in downtown Rhinelander," he said. "If you're Irish or not, enjoy the weekend and the holiday itself. It should be a lot of fun."
Andy Hildebrand may be reached at andy@rivernewsonline
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