The Hillsboro Lighted Christmas Parade, organized by the Hillsboro Uptown Business Association (HUBA) and the city of Hillsboro, will be held Saturday, Dec. 11 at 6 p.m.
According to Jennifer Cundiff-Maurer, a HUBA board member and parade coordinator, “Christmas Toyland” is the theme of this year’s parade.
She said the parade will be similar to years past, but there will be a new route. “It will go past Speedway and make a left right there where Webster used to be and head up to the middle of town and turn left in front of NCB and then turn left again in the center of town on West Main Street and head back down,” she said.
“We are going to change the route because we noticed that some of the walkers had a hard time getting up the big hill in front of Great Scott, which put a long gap between a lot of our floats,” she said.
Tom (a former Highland County sheriff) and Maggie Horst will serve as the parade’s grand marshals.
Snowflake Pageant Queen Isabella Racine will be the queen of the parade. Snowflake Pageant winners Presley Haynes, Boston Nartker, Lynley Bailey, Knox Haynes, Braylah Wells, Gage Haynes and Saige Igo will also be leaders of the parade.
Santa Clause, of course, will be part of the parade. Highland County Sheriff Donne Barrera and local first responders such as law enforcement and fire department personnel will be participating.
“We’re still getting a lot of applicants, and we’ll have lots of local businesses involved as well,” said Cundiff-Maurer. “I hope they all come up and join us uptown for all the Christmas activities, and if someone is interested in having a float, we’d love to have them — the bigger the better because each year we try to make it bigger,” she said.
Those interested in participating in the parade can get an application at Cundiff Flowers or contact Jennifer Cundiff-Maurer at [email protected].
Additionally, a tree lighting in downtown Hillsboro will be held Friday, Dec. 3 at 6 p.m. on the side of the old firehouse facing Governor Trimble Place. Hillsboro Mayor Justin Harsha will be on hand to do the honors of lighting the tree.
Members of the Hillsboro Bible Baptist Church will sing before the tree lighting and two horse-drawn carriages will be giving rides around the block.
The firehouse will be set up with activities for children and Santa Clause will be at Merchants National Bank from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Reach John Hackley at 937-402-2571.
