Strawberry Festival Junior Floats Parade rolls through downtown Humboldt

HUMBOLDT, Tenn. — People packed Main Street in downtown Humboldt on Thursday for the Junior Floats Parade at the West Tennessee Strawberry Festival.

Marching bands, beauty queens and floats flooded the street.

Emma Waller comes every year. “We’ve been doing it for 40-something years,” she said.

Waller reserved a spot along the parade route about two weeks ago.

“You have to to get a good spot,” she said. “You have to rope it off early.”

Organizers said it is the largest non-motorized parade in the area.

“Hand-pulled floats or carts and buggies and different things like that,” West Tennessee Strawberry Festival General Chairman Chelsea Caraway said. “It’s just a fun day for everybody.”

“Today’s special just because it’s almost more intimate just because you are walking,” West Tennessee Strawberry Festival President Melissa Swingler said.

Beverly Boulter started working on a float for the Presbyterian Day School in Humboldt in February. “We worked on her day and night, probably about five days a week,” she said.

Builders said putting floats together took a lot of cardboard, tissue paper and wallpaper paste. “A lot of work,” Teresa Lowery, a float builder, said. “A lot of sweat. A lot of tears.”

Kids enjoyed riding in the parade. “It’s fun,” Jamiayah Estes, 10, said. “You get to see people in their little outfits and stuff.”

The West Tennessee Strawberry Festival is a tradition 81 years in the making that keeps people coming back year after year. “The floats and to see the bands and just to enjoy the company,” Waller said.

The Grand Floats Parade kicks off at 10 a.m. Friday.