Parade for 5-year-old who will undergo surgery to take place in Lincoln Co.

Five-year-old Addison Reed has always loved princesses. In fact, she considers herself royalty as well.

“She honestly thinks she’s a princess,” said Cortney Reed, Addie’s mom. “She’ll say, ‘call me Princess Addie. Not Addie. It’s Princess Addie.’ So it just kind of stuck.”

“She just is my Princess Addie Mae,” Brittani Middelton, Addie’s friend, said. “She’s like, like we say, my bestest friend in the whole wide world.”

Middleton held Addie while talking, and the two exchanged a smile.

“I know this surgery’s going to go alright and she’s going to be just fine.”

On August second, Addie will have a spinal surgery, removing her brace and having rods put in.

Cortney said, “Then she’ll be able to wear her princess crowns without anything else in the way. Won’t you Addie?”

“Yeah,” Addie said.

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Ahead of the surgery, and idea for a royal sendoff hatched. It began at Crab Orchard Elementary School, where Denise Bastin created a Facebook post, asking for cards for Princess Addie.

“We received over 300 cards,” Cortney said. “We’ve gotten some from California, Idaho, Tennessee, Virginia, and Kentucky of course.”

The Facebook post inspired another idea. A photo of Addie holding a few of the cards stirred something in Mike Oney, a close family friend to the Reeds.

“It was just something that God laid on my heart when I saw that, just that picture alone,” Oney said. “She’s a princess. And you can see her smiling face, and she deserves recognition.”

To give Addie the royal recognition she deserves, Oney decided to put together a princess parade.

“In our eyes she is a princess,” Oney said, “and that’s the whole reason behind our parade. A princess deserves a princess parade.”

Friends and family will have signs for Princess Addie, and the princess will have her own royal dress. Today, Oney found a carriage courtesy of Jim Wallace Gover for her highness to ride in as well.

This princess procession will take place on Main St. in Crab Orchard this Saturday, July 27. The parade lineup will begin at 9 a.m. this Saturday morning and the parade will start at 11 a.m. Oney shared that anyone is welcome to enter the procession, and they hope to have many supporters for Princess Addie lining the streets as well.