It was a warm welcome only Flagler Beach could roll out on Tuesday as crowds gathered along A1A to enjoy the annual Stars and Stripes Parade hosted by the Rotary Club of Flagler Beach.
Celebrating America’s birthday, floats, cars, utility vehicles and government agencies hung the bunting and donned their most patriotic attire to dazzle onlookers. Organizations are known for passing out candy or branded swag during the event, but it turned out to be those handing out water that was most appreciated.
Invited to judge this year’s event, Sheryl and Kevin Knopf, owners of The Anchor restaurant in Flagler Beach joined Ken Tarsitano, owner of Flagler Beachfront Winery and his daughter to determine who would take home this year’s top honors.
“We were super excited to be asked to judge the parade,” said Sheryl Knopf. “It’s such an important piece of our community and I just feel like it’s important for business owners to be involved in stuff like this.”
Serving revelers along the parade route from the winery, Tarsitano enjoyed a different view this year.
“We’ve always been participating, cheering people on as well, so it’s kind of fun to see it from this perspective rather than the working perspective,” agreed Tarsitano.
The unofficial ‘face’ of the parade, Flagler Beach Rotarian Cindy Dalecki has been co-hosting the parade for years, sharing her enthusiasm for the holidays with the crowd.
“It is a lot of work, but we love it, we love community and we’re just all about everything happening in Flagler Beach,” shared Dalecki.
“Partnering with different businesses in the community is huge. They help us big time during the holidays by putting our Christmas trees in their lobbies and their restaurants. You see some of the same faces coming out to the parade, a lot of new faces. It’s just a small town feel and it really warms your heart.”
The parade is one of two overseen by the Rotary Club of Flagler County, and Tom Gillin, a Rotarian and the city’s ocean beach rescue director says they have it down to a science as residents and visitors converge on the city.
“It’s a busy beach day, parade day, and a bunch of things going on in the park. We’ve done it so many times that we tweak as we go,” said Gillin. “After every 4th of July we have a follow-up meeting about what could we have done better, what went right. Every year we get a little better with the crowd control and traffic patterns and going smoothly.”
County commissioners, city officials, local political parties, churches, sports teams and civic organizations all take part in the parades to see and be seen.
Welcoming attendees to Veterans Park after the parade, Vern Shank, owner of Surf 97.3 FM and Pyramid DJs kept the energy high with music, food trucks, bounce houses and cooling mist sprayers.
“It’s absolutely wonderful, I think, the way they did it this year. Because of the fact obviously we can’t have the fireworks here in Flagler Beach, to come together as a whole county, nobody’s trying to outdo anybody else, it’s just like a whole thing,” said Shank.
“The word united, my class song, was ‘United’ by a band called Judas Priest, that’s irrelevant. The word united means everyone together. So united is really important for me because when I was class president, I would want to unite everybody in my class. How cool is it that here in 2023 we’re all united for the 4th of July.”
~*2023 Stars & Stripes Parade Winners*~
