Park Cities People: Fourth of July Parade Memories 2018

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2 July 2018 | Park Cities People | Fourth of July Parade Memories

‘SINGLE BEST DAY OF THE YEAR IN THE PARK CITIES’

COURTESY DOUGLAS SCOTT

By William Taylor

People Newspapers

K

irk Dooley’s earliest Independence Day parade memory comes from the late 1950s, when he was 3 or 4 years old and his dad put him on a firetruck.

“I’ll never forget that,” Dooley said. Over the decades, he’s been a bicycle rider, organizer, grand marshal, and chronicler of the Park Cities Fourth of July Parade.

“It’s the single best day of the year in the Park Cities,” he said.

But that first memory was apparently made during one of the smaller, neighborhood-organized predecessors of the two-municipality parade and picnic known today.

One parade went from the Highland Park fire station to Highland Park Village. Another concluded at Caruth Park. There may have been others.

“At some point the leaders of Highland Park and University Park said, ‘Let’s do one parade together,’” Dooley said.

Decades-old newspaper clippings on file at the Highland Park Library disagree about the year of that first one from the town to Goar Park.

They put the beginning somewhere between the early and mid1960s, but 1963 was cited by authors Diane Galloway and Kathy Matthews in The Park Cities: A Walkers Guide and Brief History.

That timing fits recollections of University Park resident Mary Katherine Maddox, who, like Dooley, would go from spectator to participant, volunteering in various roles from organizer to float judge.

Maddox, Galloway, and Matthews credit Park Cities Jaycees with starting the joint parade, which would later be run by a civ-

ic committee, the Exchange Club, and, since 2003, the Rotary Club of Park Cities.

The parade and patriotic picnic have grown from primarily a bicycling affair to include a variety of neighborhood floats, vintage cars, businesses, and dignitaries for an event that University Park Mayor Olin Lane sees as unifying for the Park Cities.

“We get 10,000 people there,” he said. “The population of the two is just about 30,000, so a third of our population turns out for this.”

Galloway and Matthews describe it as hundreds of residents “on crepepaper-strewn floats and bicycles, trucks and even tanks, in strollers, on skates, and on foot.”

Retired Highland Park police chief Darrell Fant remembers Harvey Gough’s tank, which wasn’t equipped with the rubber “tennis shoes” needed to make the treads safe for city streets.

“He’d react to the crowd, and they’d cheer, and he would do a little donut and that would tear up all kinds of pavement,” Fant said.

The next year Fant told him, “Either refit it or you put up a $10,000 bond for the damage.”

Gough “decided to take his tank and go home,” Fant recalled.

Fant also had to police Super Soaker water guns, because people getting sprayed on the parade route would flee, sometimes tripping and injuring themselves.

But his primary role was as a traffic cop getting the parade started.

Afterward, he would go and sit with Margaret McDermott, the Dallas philanthropist who died in May at 106.

“She very much treasured that the beginning of that parade started at her driveway,” Fant said.

PARK CITIES PEOPLE ARCHIVES, 2007

COURTESY KIRK DOOLEY

COURTESY PATRICIA ANDERSON

COURTESY KIRK DOOLEY

TOP, FROM LEFT: Harvey Gough’s tank thrills parade goers, and neighbors celebrate love of country and community. MIDDLE, FROM LEFT: Texas Attorney General Waggoner Carr, right, waits with other speakers, and Emily Anderson, who graduated from HPHS in June, enjoyed gathering candy in 2002. BOTTOM, FROM LEFT: Gary Eckeberger, John Eckeberger, Molly Dooley, Laura Luby, Pat Cooney, and Charles Eades are ready to ride in the 1960s.

4 July 2018 | Park Cities People | Fourth of July Parade Memories

PARK CITIES PARADE MUST GO ON

Couples form committee after Jaycees end involvement COURTESY TRICIA STEWART

COURTESY DOUGLAS SCOTT

PA R A D E C H A I R S , 1 9 7 0 -1 9 9 8

COURTESY KAY NEVE

By William Taylor

People Newspapers

M

ary Katherine Maddox didn’t set out to become a July Fourth organizer in 1970.

She just wanted to know on which day of a three-day weekend the Park Cities Jaycees’ parade would roll, and no one at University Park City Hall seemed to have the answer.

“Finally, the operator put me through to the chief of police, and he explained that nobody had taken out a permit,” she recalled.

The Jaycees had shifted focus to a University Park Founders’ Day event in the fall, but Maddox felt the parade should continue. It was longer than the one-block parades held elsewhere in the Park Cities and was an important tradition at an important time for the nation.

COURTESY WILL MUNDINGER

Bill and Mary Katherine Maddox – 1970-72 Don and Peggy Sumner – 1973-74 Peter and Frances Chantillis – 1975-79 Eugene and Pat Andrews – 1980 Bob and Barbara Hancock – 1981-82

“That was a time flag burning was coming into our culture,” she recalled.

With only about 10 days to organize, Maddox and her husband, Bill, and a few friends stepped in to keep the parade and picnic going.

“I always thought that Dr. Maddox and I and this other family just put our finger in the dyke until somebody else could take it,” she said.

The Jaycees usually spent all year preparing, but a member advised Maddox there were only a few essentials, including letting the Salvation Army know to bring lemonade, contacting the fire departments to get fire engines, and applying for permits.

By 1971, a civic committee formed. Couples would take turns leading the parade until Kirk Dooley recruited the Exchange Club to take it on in 1999.

Pat and Phyllis Houston – 1983 Kit and Aileene Collins – 1984-1988 Paul and Iris Gleiser – 1989-93 Kirk and Charlotte Dooley – 1994-98

The committee would meet a few times a year with members taking on different roles, Madddox said. For example, one woman wanted sack races. Speakers and musicians were scheduled for the picnic in Goar Park.

A jury system was created for judging decorated bicycles and floats.

Diane Galloway and Kathy Matthews in The Park Cities: A Walkers Guide and Brief History, describe how people embraced the parade. “The residents of many blocks get together the night before to decorate a float for the parade – the redder, whiter, and bluer the better.”

As the celebration outgrew a flatbed trailer used as a bandstand, former parade chairs Peter and Frances Chantillis led a University Park Foundation fundraising effort.

The result: Goar Park’s gazebo, large

enough to hold an orchestra, was dedicated on July 4, 1980, according to the book by Galloway and Matthews.

Many couples, including Dooley and his wife, Charlotte, found chairing the parade challenging but fun.

“I learned to not let the eight jerks ruin my day when 8,000 other people were having a great time,” he said, recalling an encounter with an overanxious antique car driver.

“He kept inching forward and let the car jerk forward and knock me down,” Dooley said.

An officer pulled the car over and made the driver wait.

“And when the parade was over, (the officer) let him go,” Dooley recalled. “I thought, ‘I wish I could be a police officer and do things like that.’”

COURTESY ERIKA HEFNER

CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP LEFT: The Park Cities celebrate the U.S. bicentennial in 1976; sisters, from left, Beverly Bell Godbey, Ginger Bell Baden, and Tricia Bell Stewart line up to ride in 1970; siblings, from left, Robert Mundinger, William Mundinger, and Elizabeth Mundinger Malone with their grandmother Nancy Mundinger in 1989; sisters Addison and Harper Hefner in 2017; and Kay, Tom, and Jonathan Neve at the gazebo in 2006.

What do these founding fathers all have in common?

Each created his own unique estate plan.

What is your estate plan?

Sarah E. Oliai Oliai Law Firm, PLLC www.estateplandallas.com 214-800-2835

Happy 4th of July

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Park Cities People Archives

8 July 2018 | Park Cities People | Fourth of July Parade Memories

Parade A Natural Fit, Labor of Love for Rotary

By William Taylor

People Newspapers

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familiar story many new members of the Rotary Club of Park Cities tell involves deciding to join, in part, because of the 4th of July Parade.

“We have a myriad of different club activities, but the parade is No. 1,” Roy Washburn explained. “It also gives our club exposure in the community like no other event.”

Washburn, a dentist, served as the club’s parade chair through seven July Fourths after convincing Rotarians to take it on beginning with the 2003 celebration.

One of his wife’s sorority sisters had approached Washburn about Rotary taking over for the Exchange Club, which organized the 19992002 parades.

“Quite frankly, they were having trouble keeping the manpower up to man the parade,” Washburn said.

Former parade co-chair Kirk Dooley, who handed off the celebration after 1998, estimated the Exchange Club had fewer than 20 members with five doing most of the work.

Manpower wouldn’t be a problem for the Rotarians, who agreed with Washburn: “This is a natural fit

Rotarians wear matching shirts and hats when they volunteer. for our club.”

Phillip Bankhead, this year’s parade chairman, expects about 130 or more club members to participate.

Volunteers judge entries, coordinate with government; make sure cars, floats, horses, and cyclists line up properly; organize Goar Park booths, and patrol to keep candy-chasing children from getting run over.

“It’s a labor of love,” Washburn said. “The sign up list is bigger than

any other event that we do.”

Good taste is key, he said, so club members work to limit politicking and commercialism and make sure everything distributed from booths in Goar Park remains free.

Paul Gleiser, who co-chaired the parade in the 1990s with his then wife, Iris Bradley, credits real estate professional Ellen Terry with starting the tradition of businesses giving away beverages, food, and trinkets.

Terry decided to hand out thou-

COURTESY BRAD BRADLEY

sands of cups of lemonade to those arriving in Goar Park.

“One of the things that Iris and I had to police was businesses seeing the Park Cities parade as an opportunity to capitalize on the crowd and sell something,” Gleiser said. “Some were quite insistent, but we stood firm: nothing for sale. Either give it out for free in return for the PR and goodwill or don’t come.”

The Rotarians have had other matters to police as well.

“Please no water balloons,” Washburn said. “No water guns. We had a grandlady who got shot in the eye with one of those high powered water guns.”

No barbecue grills either, he said, recalling a float with riders cooking over live coals. “The fire department just went nuts with that one.”

While the celebration has evolved, “it’s still family and kid oriented and block oriented,” Washburn said.

Brad Bradley has seen many a parade through the decades, including twice as grand marshal, once in the 1990s and again with the Rotarians last year.

“The weather is always good, there’s always a big crowd, there’s plenty to eat and drink,” he said. “It seems like the people, if they had any problems, they just wait until the next day to face them.”

PA R A D E C H A I R S 2003-2018

Roy Washburn – 2003-09 Cleve Clinton – 2010-11 Paul Pirok – 2012-2014 Jim Mills – 2015-16 Phillip Bankhead – 2017-18

Fourth of July Parade Memories | Park Cities People | July 2018 9

Rotary Club Makes Parade a Hunger-Fighting Affair

North Texas Food Bank provided more than 70M meals in 2017 Last year, the Rotary Club of Park Cities and its strategic partners raised more than $22,000, and they’re in a position to raise $25,000 this year.

COURTESY NTFB

Brian Kendall

Special Contributor While the annual Fourth of July celebration in the Park Cities will be a red, white, and blue affair — full of food, face paint, and other festivities — the event, hosted by the Rotary Club of Park Cities, carries an objective far beyond a show of patriotism: helping to alleviate hunger in North Texas.

For the second year, the North Texas

Food Bank will be the primary beneficiary of the annual parade, which travels two miles from Highland Park Town Hall to Goar Park.

“Fighting hunger and addressing the needs of the hungry locally is one of [the club’] priorities,” Phillip Bankhead, parade chair and club past president, said.

“It seemed like the perfect group to partner with.”

With no entrance fee and free entertainment, the club raises money through

voluntary donations from commercial entries and the goodwill of attendees, as well as large donations from U.S. Trust and the Hal and Diane Brierley Foundation.

Last year, the Rotary Club and its strategic partners raised more than $22,000, and they’re in a position to raise $25,000 this year.

“What began as a canned food drive has grown into a strategic partnership,” Rotarian John Gilchrist said. “The parade is a celebration of America and the values

we hold near and dear, but we also want to increase awareness, as well as raise money for the North Texas Food Bank.”

Three years ago, the Rotary Club of Park Cities took on the challenge of raising enough money to open a new mobile food pantry, which would help take fresh fruits, vegetables, and other staples to designated food deserts — places that are both economically distressed and lacking access to fresh groceries.

Within a year, the club raised more than $200,000 to purchase a food truck.

“These are communities where, many times, their best option to get food is the corner gas station,” Diana Kao, major gifts officer at the North Texas Food Bank, said.

“The mobile food pantry helps deliver fresh produce to these places and raises awareness that North Texas is still very much in a fight against hunger.”

A 2015 study conducted by Feeding America found that there’s a “meal gap,” an annual food budget shortfall, of 92 million meals in North Texas.

“We were able to provide 70 million meals last year, but there’s still a 22 million meal gap,” Kao said. “[Rotary Club members] are helping us reach our goal by 2025.”

To contribute to the North Texas Food Bank, visit RCPCJulyFourth.causevox.com.

Fourth of July Parade Memories | Park Cities People | July 2018 11

THIS YEAR’S GRAND MARSHAL: KARL KUBY SR. German-born sausage maker loves U.S.A.

By Selby Lopez

Special Contributor

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s a young boy growing up in Germany during World War II, Karl Kuby Sr. saw American soldiers for the first time after his first few days returning home from a military school.

Kuby admired the Americans because they were easygoing, friendly, and always laughing. They threw candy to some of the German children when they arrived.

Now at 85 years old, Kuby looks forward to throwing candy while serving as grand marshal during the Park Cities Fourth of July Parade.

“It’s a great honor,” Kuby said. “I love my customers. They are the ones that recommended me to be grand marshal.”

Rotary Club of the Park Cities parade chairman Phillip Bankhead said Kuby was nominated by a selection committee and multiple past grand marshals.

Bankhead said the club looks for grand marshal candidates from those in the Park Cities who have made a meaningful contribution, who mimic the Rotary ideals of honesty, fairness, and good will to all, and who are well-known and respected in the community.

After nearly 60 years in the Dallas area, Kuby has become well-known to his cus-

SALAM ISMAIL

Karl Kuby Sr., 2018 Grand Marshal

“When I hear the national anthem, sometimes I have tears [in] my eye.”

Karl Kuby Sr. tomers. Kuby was 23 when he received sponsorship from one of his relatives living in the United States and traveled by boat to the U.S. in 1956.

Three years later, Kuby opened his first sausage house, Carl’s’ European Sausage, in Dallas off McKinney Avenue and Knox Street.

The shop was named after a man Kuby went into business with whose middle name was Carl, but they would tell customers it was named after Kuby.

After a couple of years, another man approached Kuby with a deal for a spot at Kuby’s current location on Snider Plaza.

Kuby made every payment on time and eventually the landlord sold him the space.

Nearly 60 years after Kuby’s current location opened, he isn’t in the shop as much.

His son, Karl Kuby Jr., now runs the shop, but Kuby Sr. still drops by a few times a week to pass out gummy bears to children.

Kuby Sr.’s patriotism toward the U.S. has only grown since moving here.

Not long after moving to the U.S., Kuby tested for and earned his citizenship. In his front yard, he has an American flag he got from former President Ronald Reagan. The flag once flew over the White House.

In his free time, Kuby also crafts wooden walking canes for war veterans.

“When I hear the national anthem, sometimes I have tears [in] my eye,” Kuby said.

Kuby will help kickoff the parade on July 4 donning his “Let Freedom Ring” shirt near the Highland Park Town Hall.

GRAND MARSHALS, 2002-18

Bob Heard – 2002

Chief Darrell Fant – 2010

UP Mayor Ed Drake – 2003

Dr. R. Gerald Turner – 2011

UP Mayor Barbara

Randy Allen – 2012

Hitzelberger – 2004

Kirk Dooley – 2013

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson – 2005

Dr. Dawson Orr – 2014

State Rep. Dan Branch – 2006

Leslie Melson – 2015

UP Mayor John Roach – 2007

Mike and Marla Boone – 2016

George Patterson – 2008

Brad Bradley – 2017

Dr. Cathy Bryce – 2009

Karl Kuby Sr. – 2018