It’s possible Owensboro won’t have a Christmas parade in 2020.
The pandemic has caused officials who run the annual Owensboro-Daviess County Christmas Parade to get a late start in planning this year’s event. Though no decisions have been made at this time, the outlook is not great.
The parade’s board of directors, made up of eight volunteers, originally schedule their first meeting for April 1 each year. This year, however, the board hasn’t met once.
Board member Jeanette Ward said COVID-19 has caused issues in getting the group together to discuss the parade. Ward said the board plans to meet when they can with only a few months to go, but she wasn’t sure how feasible it would be to host an event that could bring thousands of people together in a safe manner.
“I don’t think it’s looking very good, to be honest,” Ward said. “We are going to look into this next week.”
Ward mentioned that Evansville cancelled their Christmas parade last week.
She said it would be difficult to enforce social distancing measures for a community that often stands shoulder-to-shoulder during the event, adding that the number of children who attend the parade would make it even harder to control.
And with the parade route being “pretty set,” Ward said it would be difficult to meander off the 2nd Street path that’s been laid out year after year. One year the parade relocated its route to 3rd Street due to construction, but Ward said it didn’t go very well.
“2nd Street is comfortable for the bands that perform,” she said. “When you start turning those corners, it causes all kinds of problems. Right now, everything is in limbo.”
