The Pegasus Parade’s annual traipse down Broadway is Louisville’s oldest Kentucky Derby Festival event, filling the streets with celebratory sights and sounds since 1956. This year’s march marks the 57th year for the event, as a host of sponsors and participants drape and adorn their respective floats for the wide eyes of 250,000 Derby fans. But these floats are much more than just streamers, roses and ribbons. With months of planning, brainstorming, muscle, and more than a little elbow grease already under their belts prior to The Big Day, the creative minds behind the parade’s vibrant displays have gone a long way to ensure every detail of sparkle and shine delights you from mane to tail.
“It is a very long day, but worth every minute,” said Kyleen Kelly, chairwoman for the Second Chance @ Life float.
For Kelly and her team at Second Chance – participants in the parade for the past 15 years – the creation process and showcasing of their festival float is equal parts good time and good outreach.
“The float is a wonderful awareness opportunity to educate the public on the critical need for organ donors,” said Kelly.
The process all begins with rough sketches on paper and the team then spends three to four months creating their float from start to finish.
“The Pegasus Parade committee selects the overall theme…around Oct. 1,” said Kelly. “We start immediately brainstorming for ideas which will incorporate our Second Chance mission of organ, eye, and tissue donation awareness into the theme.”
Working in the self-build division of the parade, the Second Chance float takes shape around the skeleton of a flatbed farm wagon. With all hands on deck, a veritable battalion of volunteers, donor families, and Second Chance members all contribute to transforming a simple sketch into material form. Building supplies such as plywood and plaster form basic structures, while a colorful skin of decorative pieces – a myriad of shimmering fringes, vinyl sheeting, and festooning – are applied by hand. A gas generator provides the necessary electric soul, bringing the entire float to life with music and animation.
The Pegasus Parade, and its preparatory work, is the kind of grassroots labor that provides the folks at Second Chance – a community of individuals already closely bonded by their life-changing and life-giving experiences – the opportunity to share their message with the public in a highly exuberant way.
“The thrill of participating in the parade is awesome,” said Kelly. “We are a living testimony that organ donation does work. This feeling just makes us wave that much harder to the crowd.”
But even with the adrenaline rush payoff on the streets of Broadway, manual labor is not to be taken lightly.
“I believe we have pulled out somewhere around 460,000 staples,” said Jude Elkins, chair of The Fillies float.
A spectacle in the parade now for 26 years, the Fillies’ pegasus-crowned float is one of the oldest and most recognizable festival vessels, annually displaying the year’s Derby Festival Queen, princesses and pages. Bedecked in shades of blue and flower-adorned columns, the Fillies’ float is being completely refurbished this year – a process undertaken every six or seven parades – and Elkins has been hard at work scraping, sculpting and, yes, pulling up many a staple for over 100 hours. Elkins, a member of The Fillies for five years now, is chairing the float for the first time.
“I’m sort of learning as I go, but I’ve loved it,” said Elkins. “You get attached [to the float].”
Working directly in conjunction with the Kentucky Derby Festival Foundation, The Fillies – 250 members strong – host various fundraisers to support the festival.
“We’re just a fun group of ladies,” said Elkins. “I’ve met some really nice people.”
For Elkins and her float committee – hard at work with petal paper and paint since October – the reward of community fellowship makes every last staple well worth the effort.
That same sense of camaraderie is echoed by Vangie Satterfield, in charge of Norton Healthcare’s festooned festival entry.
“This is a great way for us to give something fun back to the community,” said Satterfield.
Active in the parade for 16 years out of the past two decades, the Norton Healthcare float is planned, built, and manned by a volunteer army of Norton employees and their families. But apart from bringing smiles to the crowd, the creative team behind the parade process doesn’t skimp on having a good time themselves.
“We pick a theme that represents KDF’s theme and one that we are capable of building,” said Satterfield. “Most importantly, it has to be one that will be fun for us to build.”
Armed with petal paper, festoon, fringe, fabric, wood, and glitter, Satterfield’s team works on executing their design almost every day right up until the Preview Party. Parade Day finds many of these same volunteers enjoying the honor of riding the fruits of their handiwork. All the participants have contributed some kind of time, energy, or talent into the final creation that takes the trek down Broadway.
“It has been a wonderful experience all these years to participate in the parade,” said Satterfield. “Building a float makes for lasting friendships.”
As we prepare to kick off our city’s festival of fast horseflesh and transform the streets into a thoroughfare of thoroughbred celebration, offer an extra wave to the spectacle of colorful caravans. Whether it’s panache with a life-giving purpose or the simple pleasure of teambuilding, the repertoire of Pegasus Parade floats on display this year all share a multitude of dedicated volunteers behind the sponsor banners. So, the question is: How much do you love a parade?
–Erin Day
2012 Republic Bank Pegasus Parade
Thursday, May 3
5 p.m.
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