Jessica Cejnar / Tuesday, May 11, 2021 @ 5 p.m.
Public Health Nurses, Volunteers to be 4th of July Parade Grand Marshals
Del Norte County public health nurses, who have all received the COVID-19 vaccination, were honored during National Nurses Week last week. Photo courtesy of Chris Howard
The theme for this year’s Fourth of July parade will commemorate Del Norte’s Olympic story, but the community’s public health nurses and volunteers will be the guests of honor.
Before reading the proclamation for National Nurses Week at the Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday, District 2 representative, Valerie Starkey, announced that Del Norte’s public health nurses and the volunteers who manned local COVID-19 vaccination clinics will be the grand marshals at this year parade.
The chair for this year’s parade and one of the co-chairs for the community’s overall Independence Day celebration, Starkey said her vision is to have the public health nurses and volunteers on a flat bed truck or walking alongside it.
But, Starkey said, she’d leave it up to Debra Wakefield and Pete Craig, who helped coordinate volunteer work during the vaccination effort to determine how to best show case the grand marshals during the parade.
“We’ll use this as an opportunity for the public to celebrate them and their hard work,” Starkey said. “It’s an opportunity to highlight all their different organizations that comprise them, but it wasn’t just CERT, it wasn’t just DART and it wasn’t just the Red Cross — it was the volunteers in our community.”
The theme for this year’s parade, “Go for the Gold — Red, White and Blue” commemorates NBC Sports’ coverage of the story of Kamome and the sister city relationship between Rikuzentakata, Japan, and Crescent City-Del Norte County at the Olympic Games in Tokyo.
The event begins at noon on July 4 with the lineup starting at 10:30 a.m. The parade starts at H and 9th streets in Crescent City before wending its way down to 3rd Street, up to K Street and over to Front Street.
Parade entry is free due to sponsors Lucky 7 Casino and the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation, Tobacco Use Prevention Program, Elk Valley Casino and the Elk Valley Rancheria, Sutter Coast Hospital, Pacific Power and New Dawn Support Services, according to a Crescent City-Del Norte County Chamber of Commerce news release.
Find a parade entry form at Visit Del Norte or request the form from chamber@delnorte.org. People can also pick a form up at the chamber’s visitor center at 1001 Front Street in Crescent City.
In addition to celebrating the community’s public health nurses and volunteers, the Chamber of Commerce will hold its Hometown Heroes event. Hometown Heroes made its debut in 2020 as a way to safely celebrate the Fourth of July, though because of the pandemic the parade, fireworks display and other festivities weren’t possible.
The Fourth of July decorating contest will also continue this year, Cindy Vosburg, the chamber’s executive director, told the Wild Rivers Outpost.
“We did the Hometown Heroes last 4th of July and had people nominate who they consider heroes in our community,” she said. “What we want to do for the other nominations for Grand Marshall is move them over to the Hometown Heroes and recognize them that way.”
During the Board of Supervisors meeting, Shelby Bodenstab, Melody Cannon-Cutts and other Public Health nurses received the county’s proclamation.
“We have seen nurses in the community take this challenge of COVID-19 and really meet the need,” Bodenstab said.
During his regular COVID-19 update to the Board of Supervisors, Dr. Warren Rehwaldt echoed Starkey’s comments and added that nursing volunteers also helped administer vaccines.
“These are nurses from emergency services and hospital care and clinical care,” Rehwaldt said. “And they’ve come and helped us when we needed them the most. We owe them a legion of thanks for everything they’ve been doing.”
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