Sioux City Rivercade Parade

Wednesday, July 19

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Greetings to volunteers, staff and friends of Extension!

We are proud to tell all that the Woodbury County Extension entry in the Rivercade Parade in Sioux City earned the Admiral’s Award (first place) on Wednesday, July 19!

It was a very hot day so I was very thankful that people still showed up to help us with this event! See attached pictures of our float entry. We had 23 volunteers and staff that were present to be in the parade to help prepare it and hand out pencils and garden seeds during the parade. The volunteers included Master Gardeners, 4-H members and staff. There were 5 additional volunteers who helped with the float and brought plants for the float. I don’t believe we have everyone in the pictures that helped but most. See attached pictures.

We created great awareness about Woodbury County Extension by being in the parade! It helps even more that we got first place! I heard numerous people comment about us as pencils and seeds were handed out.

I want to thank the following people who helped make this a success:

Mary Ann DeVries – the former Master Gardener Program Coordinator from Des Moines, who allowed us to borrow the watering can. She was informed of our win today and we have maintained the status of the history of this can in parades always getting the #1 vote by judges! Thanks for allowing us to use it Mary Ann! We appreciate it.
The next is Pat Shanahan and his grandson Christian who traveled many miles to get the watering can which was a big job and took many hours as it had been located at Albia, IA. Pat saw to it that the float was transported, protected and loaded and unloaded it numerous times. He invested many hours on this for weeks! Bless this person and many special thanks for a tremendous amount of work and follow through on many tasks associated with it!
Mimi Shanahan – who spent many hours working on this as well, coordinating who was bringing containers of flowers, repainting the picket fences, etc. She was a great cheerleader and worker in the process and took pictures! She and Pat her husband helped load and unload many of the plants and their son allowed us to use his pickup to pull the float.
Volunteers to be thanked who helped and were in the parade and many brought plants: Master Gardeners- Rosanne Lienhard, Sam Thomas (4- H too), Megan Will and her daughter Kayla, Pam Clark. The ones who brought plants to use but did not walk in the parade are Stacy Thallus, Pam Eliason and Dawn Allen. The Master Gardeners who helped out with loading the watering can with Pat are Bob Blenderman and Ken Gardner.
Special thanks to the 4-H youth and their families who also volunteered to help out and worked hard in the parade: Bill, Alana and Tonya Redenius, Tim, Judd and Tyler Hoy, Wendy Beavers and Alyssa Schlotman. Many of them drove quite a distance to get here in time for the judging! I was quite impressed with the quality and commitment of work done by our 4-H youth - good role modeling for other young people in Woodbury County. I enjoyed getting to know them. Our 4-H youth carried the Woodbury County Extension 4-H banner too.
Special thanks to 2 staff that led the campaign among the staff to get volunteers to help- Jean Smith and Kellyn Eeckhoff! Jean also brought her daughter Joslyn (thanks to her too) to be in the parade and help! They made sure we had refreshments and plenty of fluids due to the heat of the day.
Adrienne Jansen – our marketing leader for all her hard work on this too. She ordered shirts, helped with ordering banners, saw to many details and took lots of pictures.
Nancy McConnell and Linda Erickson – area staff that helped out with everything – great enthusiastic supporters and helpers to the effort. Many thanks to them!

Feel free to print the pictures in your paper or forward to friends etc. if you like! Please call if you have questions or need more information, Thank you!!

Thanks so much!

Sherry McGill
Woodbury County Extension Education Director