Santa Claus, the elves and even the Altoona Curve\u2019s mascot Steamer rolled through Tyrone last evening for the annual Yuletyme Christmas Parade.
\nMore than 40 groups participated in the event, which was postponed on two other occasions due to inclement weather. Even though Mother Nature refused to lift her cruel, cold touch for the festivities last evening, hundreds of people lined Pennsylvania Avenue as the floats, bands, fire trucks and twirlers marched by.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re pleasantly surprised about the turnout we had this year,\u201d said Rose Black, a member of the Tyrone Area Chamber of Commerce and an organizer of the Yuletyme parade. \u201cWe thought that after we had to postpone it twice already, that more people would decide just to stay home. We\u2019re especially glad that was not the case. Pennsylvania Avenue was full of people.
\n\u201cIt was nice to see.\u201d
\nIn all, 42 groups and organizations participated in the parade. These included a number of area fire and police departments with their emergency apparatus; floats by Tyrone Rotary Club, Baltimore Life Companies, St. Matthew School\/Knights of Columbus, Tyrone Area High School Key Club, Tyrone Class of 1966, Tyrone American Legion, TAHS Future Farmers of America, and DelGrosso Amusement Park.
\nAlso, TAHS middle and high school bands; the donation collection organizations of Salvation Army, Tyrone Area Community Organization and Dover Millionaires Inc.; and of course, Santa on Dave and Linda Hershey\u2019s horse sleigh.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s just a wonderful spectacle,\u201d said Robin Hopkins of Tyrone, who attended the parade with her son Billy Morgan.
\n\u201cI like everything,\u201d said Billy. \u201cEspecially Santa Claus. I\u2019m glad I got to see him.\u201d
\nThree-year-old Austin Quinn of Tyrone also looked on in amazement as his mother stood by, pockets bulging from all the candy.
\n\u201cI\u2019m really having a good time here,\u201d said Austin. \u201cI got a lot of candy.\u201d
\nAccording to Black, TACOC members judged floats on a criteria, which included originality and display.
\n\u201cThe floats all looked really good this year,\u201d said Black. \u201cIt was evident that these people put a lot of time into them. The judges really had a hard time awarding just three winners.
\nFirst place went to the Tyrone Area High School Key Club and their gingerbread house-themed float. Tyrone\u2019s Class of 1966 took second place honors, while DelGrosso\u2019s Amusement Park and its carousel horses and sleigh won third place.
\n\u201cThis parade really set the tone for enjoying the holiday season in Tyrone,\u201d said Tyrone Mayor Patricia Stoner. \u201cOn a scale of one to ten, I\u2019d have to give everything last night a \u201810\u2019. The crowd was one of the largest I\u2019ve ever seen at our Christmas parades.\u201d
\n Immediately following the parade, children had the opportunity to meet with Santa and enjoy refreshments at the Tyrone Armory. The Salvation Army provided hot chocolate and the Women\u2019s Club of Tyrone provided homemade cookies.
\nPrior to the parade, a community lighting of a Christmas tree near the post office occurred, Speeches were made by Mayor Pat Stoner and Blair County Commissioner John Eichelberger, Cary Simpson and Denny Huber.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Santa Claus, the elves and even the Altoona Curve\u2019s mascot Steamer rolled through Tyrone last evening for the annual Yuletyme Christmas Parade. More than 40 groups participated in the event, which was postponed on two other occasions due to inclement weather. Even though Mother Nature refused to lift her cruel, cold touch for the festivities […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47671\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}