We Love a Parade

As you might have seen in yesterday's recap, I was in my first ever parade on Saturday! It was my first official event with WBCL - and it was fun.

The parade was for the Three Rivers Festival in Fort Wayne. I've never even been to the festival before, so the whole thing was new for me. It's a big festival - complete with television coverage of the parade! (Mama!) I actually read it's the second largest summer festival in the state - behind the state fair itself. Impressive!

I got up at five in the morning - on a Saturday! - and drove to the station to meet the other people working the parade. We piled into the official station van - check that out!
We drove to our line-up designation point, which was thankfully under a tree. Saturday was a gorgeous day - not a cloud in the sky, full sun, full HEAT. So at least while they set everything up, we were in the shade.

Two of the on-air guys rode the station trikes, but while they were trying to get the speakers to work on the van, the trikes were unoccupied. Hee hee hee. Faith and I tried them. (Faith is the daughter of one of the morning guys.)

The trikes were very comfortable (once they told us how to adjust them for our height) - but the front wheel doesn't move. It's only the back wheels that turn, so we had to learn to steer from the back. Kind of odd. They took this picture as my first event picture. :)

Here's the crew for the day. I'll introduce you to them. In the front (as you can see) are Ross and Scott. They are both on-air guys...Ross does the mid-day show and Scott does the afternoon show. I've been listening to both of them for years! In the back is Faith (you already met her), Larry the news guy, me, and Phil, who is on the morning team.

I'm really glad I got to do this event with them - not only because it was fun, but because it gave me a chance to hang out with them and get to know them a bit. So far I've not been able to see too much of the on-air guys at the station because they're all busy being on the air. So this was just a great low-pressure way to begin to get to know them.

I was one of the banner-bearers, along with Larry. (Sorry about the view of my backside!) We were right behind the Ft. Wayne Komets trolley. I was unbelievably thankful to not be in the furry mascot suit like one of their guys!! Our shirts were black, so they were hot, but they're athletic shirts that absorb sweat, so that was nice. I was still pretty nasty by the end!

Since it was my first parade, I had no idea what to expect. It was so fun to walk past groups of people who yelled out "BCL!! You're my favorite station!!" I wanted to yell back "Mine too!" I'm such a groupie. My job was to smile and wave a lot - and it helped that so many of them waved back. I'll have to remember that next time I go to a parade.

Lots of people at this parade. We heard our names announced twice...once by the parade officials and once by the TV station. That was weird. (So odd to hear your name and know it's on TV.)

After the parade ended, we went back to the station (very slowly...you know how it goes getting out of parade congestion) and I headed for some lunch. Check THIS out.

Fort Wayne - how I love you.