Ovando's July 4th Parade marks community's emergence from year-long COVID-19 doldrums

After COVID-19 prompted the community to call off their famously informal Fourth of July parade last year, Ovando was in full swing this year as the town square was filled with people who made the trip to the small Blackfoot Valley town for the event.

"We come a thousand miles every year for this parade, " said Darren Dreessen of Moorhead, Minn., a relative of the Geary's from Helmville. He said they also have friends with family in Ovando who fly in from Coral Springs, Fla. for the parade. Dreesen explained they all come to support local Montana.

For businesses and residents in Ovando, the return of the familiar Independence Day Celebration created an almost palpable sense of relief.

"It's absolutley wonderful," said Fred Valiton, owner of the Blackfoot Commercial Company in downtown Ovando. "It was a bad year without it. Good to see everybody out; the firetrucks, the whole community pulling together."

"Are you kidding me?" Kathy Schoendoefer asked when questioned about her thoughts on the parade. "We needed this."

She said last year they snuck in a mini parade people could watch via the camera on the Blackfoot Angler that overlooks the town square.

"The firetrucks drove around an squirted nobody, and Teddy Needles vhad his antvique tractor. It doesn't have brakes so it almost had an accident with nobody," she said. "So now having everybody back in town, we've been waiting for this."

(It should be noted that, although many people were doused with water from the fire trucks, this year's parade featured nary an antique tractor accident.)

Barb McInally at the Brand Bar Museum agreed. "It's nice. This is great, to have things opened up. People can finally see faces without masks on, that sort of thing. Everyone wants to get out I think," she said. "They're here now, and they're hoping the parade in Seeley Lake is later, and there's music and what have you. They're just looking for things to do, now that we can get out and be comfortable."

The parade, which made its traditional two laps around town, was led by Lincoln American Legion Post 9 and featured firetrucks, both old and new, emergency service vehicles, a drift boat full of fly fisherpersons, a trailer full of flappers celebrating like it was 1921 and an entry from Two Creek Ranch that Schoendoerfer joked would win the award for most obnoxious music for the selection of tunes it was blaring as it made the rounds.