Fifty years ago, Jean Prew participated in the first Hazel Dell Parade of Bands in 1964 by wearing a genie costume and riding in the back of a convertible advertising her business, Jeanie’s Coffee Cup.
On Saturday, the 93-year-old was among tens of thousands of spectators who attended the parade’s Golden Jubilee.
“It’s just something to see all of the generations still enjoying it,” she said Saturday. “It just makes me feel so good.”
Prew said she was the only woman among a group of business owners who founded the parade in 1964 to provide an occasion for the local school marching bands to perform. The group called itself the “99 Strip” men’s business association, which later became the Hazel Dell/Salmon Creek Business Association. Prew’s cafe was located on Highway 99 near the intersection of 99th Street.
“When I started the cafe, it was in the country,” she said. “There wasn’t even a stoplight.”
Local residents nicknamed Prew’s cafe the “North End Precinct” because local sheriff’s deputies and firefighters liked to hang out there, she said.
She and her sister, Lenore Ford, who worked in the cafe, dressed up like Barbara Eden on “I Dream of Jeannie,” and rode in the back of a cream-colored Pontiac convertible in the parade procession.
At that time, I was famous in Hazel Dell,” Prew said. When the parade announcer introduced her float, “everybody started shouting and waving,” she recalled.
To commemorate the parade’s 50th anniversary, many of the parade floats on Saturday featured a 1950s theme. (That theme was required to win the overall parade entry.)
Among the floats was a 1950s soda shop with a gyrating Elvis or two. The float, designed by Glenwood Place Senior Living, won the Grand Marshal’s overall parade entry award.
There also were dancing horses, prancing 4-H goats in tutus, classic cars and 28 school marching bands from Washington and Oregon. In all, there were about 162 entries this year, including businesses. Political candidates waved from some of the floats, one day after the close of the election filing period.
The six high school bands that participated in the original event (there also were three junior high schools) also marched in the procession. They were: Battle Ground, Camas, Columbia River, Evergreen, Fort Vancouver and Hudson’s Bay high schools.
And there was a Golden Jubilee Band, made up of band members that marched in the parade throughout its history.
The parade lasted more than two hours, much longer than the one-hour parades of the 1960s.
Back in 1964, school bands didn’t have many places to play. At the time, the Rose Parade was exclusively for Oregon bands, so Highway 99’s business leaders decided on a homegrown parade.
“We decided we wanted to help the schools,” Prew said. “We decided on a parade of bands.”
The first parade featured eight bands and about 8,000 spectators. An estimated 25,000 people turned out for Saturday’s event.
“There weren’t that many floats at that time,” Prew recalled of the 1964 event. “It was just bands; maybe some farmers came in with their hay trucks filled with kids. It was a country parade.”
Prew now lives in an apartment along a segment of the parade route between 78th Street and 99th Street.
“The parade didn’t come this way back then,” she said. In 1964, it started on Hazel Dell Avenue at 63rd Street, headed north to 78th Street and then snaked around to Highway 99.
The parade has become a tradition for many Vancouver-area families.
Audri Wormer and her 2-year-old son, Rylie Harbaugh, attended the parade with Rylie’s grandmother, his great-grandmother and family friend.
“We’ve been going for years,” Wormer said. “I grew up in this area. It’s kind of like a tradition for us.”
Prew said the community loyalty to the event gives her a deep sense of satisfaction.
“Seeing all of this coming from nothing has added 10 years to my life,” Prew said Saturday. “I’ll make it to 100 yet.”
