Thousands expected at Salem parade, craft show Saturday

By D.A. Wilkinson

SALEM — Antiques, floats and eclectic music are expected to draw about 13,000 people Saturday.

The 44th Kiwanis Antique and Craft Show will run from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Centennial Park.

The Salem Grande Parade will start at 6 p.m. at the Union Avenue and State Street, proceed west on State Street though the downtown, and disband at Ellsworth Avenue.

Audrey Null, the executive director of the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce, which is coordinating the parade, said the Erie Thunderbirds Drum and Bugle Corps from Erie, Pa., will be taking part in the parade.

Null said the corps may also have time to put on its own show but details haven’t been worked out.

The Thunderbirds has announced its 2008 repertoire includes a tribute to the late jazz great Maynard Ferguson’s “Blue Birdland,” Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” and ends with a medley from the movies, “How the West was Won,” “Hang ‘Em High,” and “The Magnificent Seven.”

That’s not typical parade music, but that’s the point. Null said that mixing the elements keeps the events fresh.

Merchants will be having specials, and the chamber’s Quakertown Trolley will ferry people from the downtown to the park.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.