More than 50,000 watch Fourth of July parade
Published in the July 9-23, 2014 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Marty Cheek
Longtime Morgan Hill residents, from left, Colleen Reed, Cody Reed, 2, and Ben Reed cheer on parade participants from a sidewalks on the southwest side of Main Avenue.
Photo by Marty Cheek
Longtime Morgan Hill resident Phyllis Bellet is a Yankee Doodle baby. Born on the Fourth of July, she celebrated her 92nd birthday and America’s 238th birthday with friends and family last Friday behind a white picket fence of the Votaw House catty-corner from City Hall. Sitting in the summer sun, Bellet was joined July 4 morning by about 54,000 people throughout downtown to watch the annual Morgan Hill Independence Day Parade celebration.
“I think it’s great the town has the parade,” she said. “Where else is there a parade like this? Morgan Hill can put on a really good-quality parade.”
Bill Tindall, the owner of the Votaw House, said Bellet is always the guest of honor at the annual Fourth of July party where guests can watch the parade while enjoying a barbecue brunch. The house was built in 1906, the same year that Morgan Hill was incorporated as a city. Guests on its front yard and porch have viewed many Independence Day parades during the decades.
“I’ve been here in the house for six years, so it was kind of a condition of me moving in that I have to have the Fourth of July celebration here,” Tindall said. “We have a great time. We have between 100 and 200 people here each year. Everybody brings a dish and we have a great time together.”
Dustin Meredith, 1, gets a great seat from his dad Jason Meredith during this year’s parade. Photo by Marty Cheek
Morgan Hill citizens have been proudly proclaiming their patriotism with a community parade since at least 1894. The official Fourth of July parade for Santa Clara County, this year’s parade showcased 139 entries including 22 floats and eight marching bands.
Parade co-chairs Bob and Maureen Hunt are long-time Fourth of July fans. They have been helping put on Morgan Hill’s parade for decades — Bob starting in 1975 and Maureen starting in 1985.
The 2014 parade was an “overwhelming success,” Maureen said.
“Everyone was smiling, they were saying Happy Fourth of July and thank you,” she said. “Even though we do this as volunteers, we do get paid by seeing everyone’s faces and seeing them having such a marvelous time.”
KBAY radio personality Jona Denz-Hamilton enjoys serving with Morgan Hill resident Donna Cowan as co-announcers for the Monterey Street section of the parade. Denz-Hamilton says she has so much fun that the parade always goes by too fast. Toward the end of the parade, she gets into a convertible car and rides the route, snapping photos of the thousands of people watching from the sidelines.
“The Morgan Hill spirit is something this parade captures,” she said. “It’s so much a traditional hometown Fourth of July. This is the feeling of small-town America.”
San Martin resident Nicole Duarte agrees, saying she enjoys watching the annual passage of patriotic pageantry with her family. The diversity of the ages of people and ethnic groups in the parade represents what America is all about, she said.
“I’ve said it for years, I just love the parade because anybody can get in the parade and represent America and be patriotic,” she said.
San Jose residents Steve and Brenda Conner decided for their first experience in the Morgan Hill Independence Day parade they wanted to volunteer. The owners of the Postal Annex store at Tennant Station served as safety marshals, Steve Conner said.
“Everyone followed the rules. Everyone complied with all of my requests,” he said.
San Martin resident Jim Freeze recalls his first Morgan Hill parade was in 1961 when he worked as a Morgan Hill police officer and served on the security detail. The parade grew considerably over the last half century, he said.
He recalls few incidents in the parade over the years. The most notable happened when a horseman’s animal acted up and started bucking. The rider lost control and the horse galloped with him through the Monterey Street entrance of the Cozy Corner bar and trotted out the back door on Third Street.
“The rider got the horse back in control, and inserted himself in the parade and down the road they went,” Freeze said. “I imagine it was a surprise for the people in the bar.”
Six-year-old Joseph King, a student at Rod Kelley Elementary School in Gilroy, last year rode in his uncle David Domenichini’s pick-up truck through the parade. This year he preferred having a curb-side street with his family in front of the Mr. Falafel Restaurant.
King summed up why he felt excited about the parade and why everyone had come together for the celebration.
“It’s a birthday,” he said. “It’s the birthday of America.”
