Capital Lakefair Grand Parade brings out the crowds for community tradition

Joyce Turner has watched the Capital Lakefair Grand Parade proceed through her South Capitol neighborhood about 40 times. Her reason for doing so year after year: the community coming together.

Turner was just one among the crowds of people who came together on Saturday afternoon to watch the parade make its way to Capitol Way and Fifth Avenue.

A longtime South Capitol resident, Turner told The Olympian she watches the parade every year she is in town and looks forward to the bands and floats.

“It’s just the community,” Turner said. “I mean, it’s a great community event. It’s something that brings out all kinds of people from all kinds of places.”

Though there were no bands this year, there were floats.

One float, red-green and bright with faux strawberries and strawberry flowers, was from the annual Marysville Strawberry Festival . Part of the Northwest Festival Hosting Association, the festival has paraded its float in not just Olympia, but Seattle, Portland, Spokane and other cities in the region.

Tom King, vice president and volunteer, told The Olympian that Olympia parade-goers always give great support to the festival, which has entered the parade for about nine years.

“It’s very rewarding to go down a parade route and see families and kids having a great time,” King said. “It sort of reinstills my faith in humanity.”

Alongside the floats paraded motorcycles, classic cars, a hearse and even two horses, named Belle and Midge.

Their riders were Roy Chance and Morgan Farrell, captain and member of the Ellensburg Rodeo Posse , which enters parades and rodeos all over Washington to promote the annual Ellensburg Rodeo.

A Thurston County posse has invited them to the parade for years, Farrell told The Olympian. Since Ellensburg shows support for Thurston County at the parade, Thurston County shows support for Ellensburg at the Ellensburg Rodeo.

“Thurston supports us and we support Thurston,” Farrell said. “It’s just kind of a camaraderie with the posses across the state.”

Before the start of the parade, Capital Lakefair volunteers awarded the posse a Best Horse Drill Team blue ribbon, which Midge wore around her neck for the rest of it.

This year, the parade saw over 60 other entries from the region and as far away as Canada.

“It’s wonderful how the neighboring communities all participate. They bring their floats, we bring our float,” Turner said. “I just think it’s a way to bring more people to our city, and for many in our city to go to other communities as well.”

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