Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

VALLEY — This year’s Valleywide Christmas Parade will be taking place on the evening of Thursday, December 12th. It will be held in honor of former Lanett Fire & EMS Chief Johnny Allen, who died in August after a long career of service to the city. Three local law enforcement officers who are now retired after exemplary service to the local community will serve as the grand marshals. They include former Chambers County Sheriff Sid Lockhart, former Valley Chief of Police Tommy Weldon and former Lanett Chief of Police Johnny Wood.

Signing up is continuing for anyone who wants to be in the parade. It will start at 6 p.m. this coming Thursday. The deadline to enter  will be 5 p.m. EST on Tuesday. There’s usually a last-minute rush of schools, churches and businesses o enter floats into the parade. The number of entries usually gets up to around 75 or 80 units on the day of the parade.

Thus far, the Valley High is the only local high school band to have made a commitment to be in the parade.

Entry forms are available at Valley Community Center. Any street legal vehicle is eligible to take part. There’s a $35 entry fee that drops to $30 with the donation of five cans of food. After the parade, the food will be divided equally between the Christian Service Center and the Interfaith Food Closet.

There’s a fee of $10 per horse that takes part in the parade.

Just before the parade starts, the Valleywide Parade Committee will select the first, second and third-place winning floats in the Community, Business and School divisions.

Local Christmas parades have been taking place for many years. Up until the early 1980s they were sponsored by the West Point Merchants Association and took place in downtown West Point. The holiday parade eventually expanded to take in all three local cities.

Lining up for this year’s parade will take place between the lower level of the Cherry Valley Shopping Center and Valley Point Funeral Services in Lanett. The parade will roll out on North 12th Street, turn left onto West 4th Avenue in front of the Corner Store in West Point and proceed three blocks north to the Point University campus, where the route turns right for one block to West 3rd Avenue, where it takes another right and continues through the heart of downtown West Point and recrosses the state line into Lanett on Highway 29. The parade then continues over a long stretch of highway into Valley, where it will disband on the parking lot outside Walmart.

Police departments in West Point, Lanett and Valley will be providing traffic control all along the route.