Get Ready for the Doylestown Memorial Day Parade

The annual Doylestown Memorial Day parade has been a part of this community in Bucks County for 145 years. It is the oldest Memorial Day parade in the United States.

The 146th annual parade feature features local high school marching bands, floats from many organizations and is a tribute to the men and women who have given their lives defending our freedom.

But, the parade is not just a group of people getting in line and marching up Main Street to the Doylestown Cemetery.  It involves months of planning and that planning is done not by the Borough of Doylestown but by the United Veterans of Doylestown, headed for the past two years by Mr. Jim McComb, a Marine Corps Vietnam Veteran.

The United Veterans of Doylestown is composed of the senior officers of each of Doylestown’s veterans’ service organizations: American Legion Post 210, Central Bucks Detachment – Marine Corps League, Doylestown Post 175, Veterans of Foreign Wars and Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 210.

Planning for the parade begins in January. A parade marshal is appointed by the United Veterans and the marshal is responsible for all aspects of the parade including:

• Organizing the parade staff
• Maintenance of the website, www.unitedveteransofdoylestown.org         
• Soliciting entries and reviewing applications for compliance to the rules
• Arranging for insurance
• Fund-raising
• Coordinating the school bands with the Central Bucks Music Curriculum chair
• Coordination with Fire Police on traffic patterns
• Execution
• Staging of the entries
• Ensuring compliance with all parade rules
• Conducting a mandatory meeting in May with all parade participants
• Ensuring that all rules are understood
• Communicating traffic patterns of that day for efficient movement of vehicles and walking participants

On the day of the parade, it is now time to execute the plan by ensuring that all parade staff members know their functions and getting all entries properly staged and sequenced in proper parade order.

The parade starts at Central Bucks West High School, moves east on West Court Street then east on West State Street and finally north on North Main Street to the Doylestown Cemetery for a memorial service to honor and those veterans who have passed.

So this year on May 28, come out and enjoy the parade and appreciate and realize the tremendous amount of work that goes into the preparation for this enormous event. 

Without the dedication of your veterans, this parade would not occur year after year in the great fashion that it has over the past 145 years.