Annual St. Patrick's parade Saturday
NEWTON — Irish eyes will smile in Newton on Saturday as the 13th annual Sussex County St. Patrick's Day Parade marches down Spring Street.
The parade is the culmination of months of work by its committee and this year, Timothy Dunnigan, of Vernon is the grand marshal.
For retired Superior Court Judge Frederick Webber of Fredon, the annual St. Patrick's Day parade is something he very much enjoys.
“I look forward to it every year,” he said. One of the reasons is that it's a family tradition and his four daughters gather with him and his wife to take in the festivities right around the grand stand area.
“To me the parade means celebrating the Irish heritage and community coming to gather and celebrating together,” said Donna Foster of Stillwater, “Plus I absolutely love the sound of bag pipes.”
“The honor of Grand Marshal to me means honoring St. Patrick the best way I can and that is by serving others,” Dunnigan said, “That is what St. Patrick did by spreading the Gospel and Christianity throughout Ireland and using the three leaf shamrock to help the Irish understand the Holy Trinity.”
He said that this year's proceeds from the parade are going to the St. Jude' research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee and St. Jude's Catholic Church Building Fund in Hamburg, where he is a parishioner. The delegation of the proceeds from each year's parade is decided by that year's grand marshal.
An avid golfer, Dunnigan is in his ninth year running the St. Jude's Golf outing. He's also a former basketball star, and though he doesn't play anymore said, “I love to watch our high school teams play. At the age of 60, I try to preserve my knees so I can play golf regularly. Golf is my passion outside of my work.”
His favorite golf course is called The Links at Unionvale which is in Dutchess County, N.Y.
“It is an Irish links course that was built by the members who all bought equity shares. It is a course with great scenery off the Taconic Parkway,” Dunnigan said, “My favorite course in Sussex County would be Great Gorge. Hopefully someone with some money will buy it and put some money into it. It has the best layout and is the most challenging of all the courses in Sussex County.”
Dunningan was enjoying the start of St. Patrick's Day week by heading to Trenton where he was speaking at a grand marshal's event.
“We will have 160 groups and over 1,000 people in the parade as of the weekend leading in," she said. “We consider all our participants as important in the parade, whether one person or groups of nearly 100.”
She said that the biggest challenge of organizing the parade is, “Staging over 1,000 individuals and floats, trucks, vehicles. It is a huge undertaking but we have a wonderful committee and other volunteers who help organize the line up. We are very grateful to them and it is a long day for them. Setting up almost three hours ahead and the planning is a year in the making.”
Harrington said, “The biggest reward is truly the smiling faces on the parade route. You see the children and their parents that come back every year, and the adults enjoying every minute. We know then that we have accomplished what we set out to do: bring Irish culture to the Sussex County community. They see Irish step dancers, pipe and drum bands, other bands and many groups within Sussex Community proudly marching with their green.”