in f o c u s by Cameron Carr Photos courtesy of City of Dublin and Jeff Glorioso
What’s in a Float? Behind the scenes of St. Patrick’s Day Parade prep
A float custom-made by the Indian Run Elementary Cub Scouts.
After a year in reverse, the Dublin St. Patrick’s Day Parade will return on March 12 in its traditional format with floats and festivities. But don’t call it the luck of the Irish that everything falls into place on March 12; it takes a lot of hard work and preparation, too. Whether it’s maintenance for events throughout the year or building something one-of-a-kind for St. Patrick’s Day, floats are anything but an afterthought. Carina Dacierno, who helped organize several floats as an Indian Run Elementary 16 • February/March 2022
Cub Scouts leader in years past, says the process would often begin in early January in anticipation of parade participant applications opening up around the end of the month. For the Indian Run scouts, a month of planning could be followed by three to four weeks of actual building. “First, we had the idea, then it was, ‘How are we going to execute this?’” Dacierno says. “Then, OK, do we actually have people who know how to do this and execute it?” Through the knowledge and skills of parents, leaders and scouts combined, the group would custom make its floats, often designing ones that nod to scouting activities or St. Patrick’s Day. One memorable float, towed by a yellow
convertible pickup truck, featured a Paddy 500 racing hill with pinewood derby cars midway down. The Indian Run scouts don’t always have a float in the parade, sometimes marching with banners and flags instead. As a smaller organization, sometimes the scouts simply don’t have the resources to make the float happen. “Logistics to have a float are hard to come by when you are a group like scouts,” she says. “No. 1: You have to have a flatbed trailer, and you have to have somebody in the (organization) who has a vehicle that can pull that trailer.” Storage throughout the year can be a challenge as well. Leo Knoblauch, parade coordinator for Honor Flight Columbus, an organization providing Veterans with trips to Washington, D.C., to visit war memorials, says that his group purchased a float vehicle from a neighbor who was unable to store it. That vehicle is a large hay wagon that Knoblauch, who estimates Honor Flight has participated in five Dublin St. Patrick’s Day Parades, had to update to make street ready to drive to parade destinations. Honor Flight participates in as many parades as possible to raise awareness of the program, so the wagon gets plenty of use throughout the year. Towing it is typically a pickup truck with Honor Flight painted on it. Knoblauch says that David Horner painted the truck after his father, George Horner, traveled to Washington through Honor Flight. When David Horner died, Honor Flight purchased the truck. New to Honor Flight’s vehicle collection is an M35 style military cargo truck, commonly known as a deuce and a half for its 2.5-ton weight. That vehicle poses more extreme storage challenges, but Honor Flight is able to keep the deuce and a half at its headquarters. www.dublinlifemagazine.com
