selling buttons before the parade. ….
selling buttons before the parade.
The first mention of a Snow Queen came in 1977, when it was announced that Darlene York of Dorchester would be pulled in a sleigh by “a handsome team of horses.”
The young ladies also competed for prizes. In 1981, Linda Schiferl won a clock-radio for placing first in the contest, along with a $50 check for her freshmen class at Abbotsford High School. Secondplace finisher Amy Deming took home a jewelry box, and third and fourth-place finishers Lori Ridderbush and Dawn Voelker each earned necklaces. The following year, all of the contestants got a sterling silver pendant and charm, and winner Becky Stroinski earned a diamond pendant.
In 1990, ventriloquist Dave Parker performed at the Abby Theater, followed by a showing of the movie “Prancer” before the parade got started. Parents were invited to drop their children off at the theater and take advantage of several shopping promotions being put on by local merchants.
A supper consisting of barbecue, hot dogs and chili was served at the National Guard Armory.
A home decorating contest was also sponsored by the Abbotsford Chamber of Commerce during the parade weekend.
The following year, for the 20th annual parade, a magician’s show was added before the parade, along with a hot meal served at Abbotsford Elementary.
For many years, in the 1980s and 1990s, the Taylor County Amateur Radio used UHF signals to beam the parade directly to TV sets at local nursing homes and senior living facilities in Abby and Colby.
The radio operators, who carried handheld radios and wore special orange vests, also provided instant communication from one end of the parade route to the other. According to a 1996 article, the radio club helped with everything from patching flat tires to reuniting lost children with their parents.
“Wake Up Santa” for kids 12 and under was held at Continental Manor in 1996, the same year that Miss Wisconsin 1996 visited to announce the parade floats.
In 1996, in an article before the 25th annual parade, it was noted that “Many Abbotsford residents have never seen their own famous Christmas Parade.”
Indeed, the residents of Wisconsin’s First City, plus those in the surrounding communities, are often too preoccupied with putting on the parade to enjoy it as spectators themselves.
“People are amazed that a small town can put on such a big production year after year,” said parade chairman Jim Siegel in 1996. “I get calls from all over the state every year asking about it. Many towns want to do something similar, but they just can’t get it off the ground.”
The parade has always depended on the local population of kids and adults to bring the characters to life and propel the floats down the often-snowy streets of Abbotsford.
Hundreds of batteries and thousands of lights are needed to keep the parade bright and shiny, not to mention the gasfueled generators that provide power for many of the floats.
No commercial floats are allowed, but local businesses still support the parade by donating prizes for the annual raffle — the event’s main source of funds.
Longtime parade organizer Kris O’Leary estimates that it would cost close to $30,000 per year to put on the parade without all of the time donated by volunteers. Even without having to worry about the cost of labor, O’Leary said it takes about $5,000 in materials to build a new float, which happens at least once every year.
The float frames are all crafted locally, and fishing line is used to sew all of the fabric to the various frames.
“It just holds up better and you can’t see the stitches,” O’Leary said.
This year, for the 50th annual parade, volunteers worked on fixing up or updating seven floats and building two brandnew ones.
“We donate I don’t know how many hours,” she said.
O’Leary said she is often recycling old floats into new ones or reintroducing characters that have come in and out of style — like those from the Care Bears, Smurfs and Star Wars.
Having been involved in the parade for most of her life, in one way or another, O’Leary says she first got started working on floats in 1997, when she helped transform an old Garfield display into a Packers snowman after the team won the SuperBowl that year following a 30-year drought.
“Garfield had been in the parade and it was just one of those things that people weren’t connecting with anymore, so we just took the float and cut off Garfield’s head,” she says, recalling how the idea for a Packers snowman jumped out at them.
That group of float-creators included Kris and her mom, Carol, along with Pat Hutman, and Kim and Kyle Kalepp.
In the late 1990s, O’Leary said volunteers for the parade were becoming harder and harder to find, and a community meeting was held to see who would keep the city’s signature event going.
People like O’Leary, Dean and Brenda Wiese and John and Pat Hutman stepped forward at that time to help build and refurbish floats and make costumes.
Prior to that, every float in the parade had a business sponsor, so that business was in charge of replacing all of the lights, cleaning it, and finding pushers every year.
“By the time I got involved 25 years ago, that had pretty much gone away,” O’Leary said. “There were just a few businesses still doing that.”
Aside from the few floats that still had business sponsors, O’Leary and a relative handful of other volunteers became responsible for keeping up all the other floats. Most of that work now falls on her and her husband, Kevin Flink.
“My husband makes the frames and I make them pretty,” she said. “I like making them pretty.”
O’Leary can remember details about all of the floats she’s worked on over the years, including the one for the popular kids’ show “Blues Clues.”
“We spent 40 hours just on the glitter,” she said, referring to her and Brenda Wiese hand-blowing sparkles onto the giant chair that holds the character “Steve.” Dwayne Olson, a veteran float-maker who worked on the “Beauty and the Beast” and the Tipping Teapot for “Alice in Wonderland,” also helped make the towering “Blues Clues” float.
O’Leary said not all of the floats make it back into the storage shed every year. With a limit on the number of floats, it helps that people don’t expect a parade that goes on for more than an hour.
“When it’s a winter parade, you don’t really want it much longer than an hour because the weather isn’t always cooperative,” she said. O’Leary said it can be “overwhelming” to oversee and coordinate all aspects of the parade, and it would be nice to see more people step forward to take on various aspects of the sprawling event.
“I don’t think anybody realizes the time commitment that’s involved,” she said.
In the run-up to the parade, on the first Saturday of December, O’Leary said she gives up her days, nights and weekends to make sure the parade is ready. She said it’s wonderful to see the event come together every year — with every float pushed and costume filled — but it usually involves a last-minute rush.
“The community always comes through, but it’s always like pulling teeth the last couple days,” she said.
Just like she took over for organizers in the past, O’Leary said others will need to do the same to keep the tradition going for another 50 years.
“I love the parade. It’s magical. It’s wonderful. For people who are in it, I think they really enjoy that hour of all the smiles and hugs you get,” she said. “But it is a huge burnout on our lives, and we realize for it to continue, we need another generation to step up and want to help.”
Despite the uncertain weather and other obstacles, the show has always gone on.
“We’ve never cancelled the parade,” she said. “Even last year during COVID, we found a way to do a drive-through parade so we wouldn’t have to not have an annual Christmas parade.”
INSIDE AND OUT -Above, the Packer float makes its way through the snowfall during the 2011 parade. Below, a group of volunteers carries a Chinese dragon through the TP Printing Co.
DORA THE EXPLORER -Dora the Explorer and her friends joined the parade in 2005. The float has a new trailer new this year.
LITTLE MERMAID -Lucinda Flink portrayed Ariel when the Little Mermaid float made its debut in 2012.
