About 21 radio operators gathered at the Mountain Valley Middle School in Sattler, Texas (just east of Canyon Lake) to help organize the staging area for the 2010 Annual Canyon Lake Christmas Parade at 8am Saturday morning, December 11, 2010.
Hill Country REACT has been organizing this event for more years than we can remember, 14+ years at least. For the past few years, we’ve been lucky to get help from neighboring ham clubs, and this year was no different. In addition to members from our own team, we also had volunteers from Travis County REACT (Austin), HC Hams (Hayes / Caldwell), and Guadalupe Valley ARC (GVARC – New Braunfels). Not shown in photo is photographer Lee N5NTG.
Here is a list of radio operators working the event…
- Ray McLeaird HC REACT
- Charlie Land HC REACT
- Lee Besing HC REACT
- David Besing HC REACT
- Gary Tangrady HC REACT
- Charles Manley III HC REACT
- Barbara Manley HC REACT
- Wade Bolling HC REACT
- Wade Martyn HC REACT
- Mike Pérez HC REACT
- “Skipp” Stem GVARC
- Samuel Stem GVARC
- Richard Graham GVARC
- Chuck Donohoe GVARC
- Jake Creamer HCARC/ HC REACT
- Rick Coleman HCARC
- Bernard Ederer HCARC
- Dianne Shirey HCARC
- Bob Shirey HCARC
- Roger Wines and 4 other Travis County REACT members
This year the parade staging area was changed, reversed from previous years. The new layout worked much better for us, giving us more room to stretch out the entries. We had nearly 60 entries this year, and the Shriners counted as just one entry, so you can guess how big it really was. The parade route was more than 2 miles, starting on the northside of Sattler, ending on the south end. Traffic was snarled for more than an hour and a half while the parade was on the main route thru town.
Roger W5WIA explaining to motorist why they can't drive thru the parade route
Most of the locals knew about the parade, since it happens every year on the 2nd Saturday of December, and signs had been posted on all roads leading into Sattler for more than a month before. But there are always those who didn’t bother to read the signs, or tourists and delivery trucks passing thru for the first time. Most of the folks getting delayed, were in good spirits, but there were a few who gave the REACT members holy hell when we refused to allow them to drive thru the parade staging area to get north to FM306. There were several requests for directions to the post office or the Ace Hardware store. One enterprising Harley Davidson motorcycle rider just got in line with a couple of other Harley riders, behind the VFW float, and drove in the parade until he reached the Ace Hardware Store. Or maybe he had such a great time, that he stayed in the parade and then went back to the hardware store.
I’ll be putting another video together for this year’s parade, but in the meantime, here are some photos I took during the event… Lee N5NTG
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- Roger W5WIA explaining to motorist why they can’t drive thru the parade route
