Another successful year for the Parade of Lights

The sidewalks on 2nd Street in Kimball were lined with local adults and youths as they eagerly anticipated the start of the Parade of Lights the night of Saturday, November 30.

The air was biting as the lights of the fire truck beamed in the distance as residents looked on bundled up in coats, gloves and scarfs. After a brief wait, the fire truck siren echoed through the streets as the parade started barreling down on the downtown area.

As the fire truck passed the crowds amassed on both sides of the street, the excited exclamations of little children could be heard as they set their eyes on Santa Claus waving from the top of the truck, signaling to the local crowd that Christmas was fast approaching.

Elaborate floats from Vince's Corner, Hometown Hardware and various other businesses throughout town glided down the street past the crowd of spectators concluding with a float featuring the 2014 Rodeo Queen Lindsey Soule, daughter of Kevin and Janet Soule of Banner County, who will be representing Kimball and Banner County at many other events in the upcoming year.

After the floats had passed through the downtown and made one final run through Chestnut Street, the fire truck stopped in front of the crowd allowing Santa to hop down into the street and walk through shaking the hands of children whose faces lit up at the sight of old Saint Nick.

Of the 14 floats that entered into the parade, The Kimball Raunch Rodeo took the top prize of 1st place out of the Adult Parade entries this year with the Ag Society taking 1st place out of the kids entries.

Maggie Baliman, who helped organize the parade this year, was impressed by the quality of each float along with the enthusiasm from local residents who lined the streets to see them.

"It took quite a bit of work, and I think the committee members of mine were excellent. We met numerous times since early November, and our community works very well together," Baliman said.

Though the Parade of Lights brought an aesthetic appeal to the downtown area, it also sent local residents to many of the small businesses, filling stores from wall to wall with customers following the conclusion of the parade through the use of a new feature of the parade in the form of a punch card that allowed residents to get "punched" at five of the local businesses in hopes of receiving chamber bucks from a drawing after turning a completed card into the parade committee.

"That was new this year, and what we were aiming to do was get foot traffic into as many businesses as were willing to participate in that program.We approached the businesses and kind of pitched them this idea that was brand new this year and our committee was under the mindset that people aren't going to buy anything if they don't set foot in the store," Baliman said.

The winner of the drawing was Jean Rauert who walked away with $150 in chamber bucks at the end of the night.

The punch card and push to help downtown businesses was such a success that it even left customers lined up outside of Larsen's Jewelry waiting to get into the door with the line stretching clear to Bemis Pharmacy, according to Karen Robinson, owner of Larsen's Jewelry.

"We always have quite a crowd, and they will be standing out in line. One woman said, 'I didn't realize in Kimball, Nebraska that you would have to stand in line to get into a store," Robinson said.

The store also had its own entertainment through the form of a flash mob of Aida Williams, Bert Linn, Jana Linn, Jake McIntosh, Rachel Merryfield, Tonia Gamblin, and Tiffani Dea.

"I talked with Aida Williams to see if she could organize that for me so she had people that were in various parts of the store. She started singing and pretty soon a man came in and then another man, and they stood in the corner and sang Christmas carols. I've always wanted to do this, and I decided this year I was going to do it," Robinson said.

For all the support that Larsen's and other local businesses received from the parade committee, Robinson is very grateful and can't hold back from singing the committee's praises.

"The young girls that put that parade together, they did a fantastic job. Going around and talking to the people about it, talking to the individual merchants and organizations to explain to them what it's about. That's what we need is communication, and they did that. I commend them for that. They just did a beautiful job," Robinson said.