After a year spent paying tribute to 60-year parade committee volunteer Dan Tierney, the South Hadley Holyoke St Patrick’s Day Parade contingent is reverting back to tradition. In honor of Tierney’s 60 amazing years volunteering with the committee, the committee paid tribute to him in 2012 with an Irish-themed float in his honor. “Dan Tierney is like the float...
The The Holyoke Parade Committee's float honoring long-time committee member Dan Tierney in the 2012 St. Patrick's Parade.
After a year spent paying tribute to 60-year parade committee volunteer Dan Tierney, the South Hadley Holyoke St Patrick’s Day Parade contingent is reverting back to tradition.
In honor of Tierney’s 60 amazing years volunteering with the committee, the committee paid tribute to him in 2012 with an Irish-themed float in his honor.
“Dan Tierney is like the float guru for the parade committee,” said Jacqueline Reardon, the South Hadley committee liaison from the Holyoke parade committee. “We honored Dan by making a float and playing music that was appropriate for him. We called it ‘Sixty Years and Still Marching.’”
But the contingent will go back to creating a patriotic-themed float in 2013, as has been the standard in previous years.
“It’s going to be called ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone,’” Reardon said. “It will show from birth to adulthood, the people that joined the service that do not come back, (and) the people they leave behind. There will be music appropriate for the float.”
The committee is hoping to have a Gold Star and/or Blue mother on the float. Gold Star mothers have lost a child in war; Blue Star mothers have children serving currently or have served in the past.
This year’s South Hadley Parade Marshall is Kevin Taugher. Taugher’s late father, Charles V. Taugher, a parade marshall 22 years ago, was one of the original founders of the South Hadley Irish Knights, the group from the local contingent which hosts an “Irish Night” fundraiser each year. “Irish Night,” now sponsored by the South Hadley Lion’s Club, raises money for Bryson House, a family assistance center in Northern Ireland that provides services to both Protestant and Catholic families.
“Kevin is active in town politics, including the fire district and town meeting,” Reardon said. “He and his wife are also active in the Elms College Irish Cultural Center. He’s very active in his heritage and supporting that.”
Taugher has been a Town Meeting member since 1990. He was elected to the Board of Assessors in 2990. He also served on the Appropriations Committee and was on the School Committee from 1991 to 1994. He is on the Prudential Committee and serves as chairman for South Hadley Fire District #1, and also serves on the board of directors at the Irish Cultural Center.
Taugher said he is proud to represent South Hadley in the parade.
“I was pleasantly surprised,” he said. “It’s not something you go seeking out, but I was very happy when they selected me.”
Taugher said he enjoys being involved in town government and local organizations.
“It seems where it was common a generation or so ago to have people involved, I think today there’s a lot more apathy, which is unfortunate because particularly on the town government level, you can have a lot more impact,” he said.
The former Citizenship Award, renamed the Irish Knights’ Award, goes to an individual who gives of him- or herself in numerous ways, in order to help others in the community.
This year’s Irish Knights’ Award is going to Bill Johnson, owner of Hampshire Towing.
“Bill Johnson has done a lot for South Hadley, Granby and Holyoke, but in the past few years, he has given us a place to store our float – a warm place to work on our float,” Reardon said. “If he wasn’t helping us out, we probably wouldn’t be building a float.”
Johnson also helps with the St. Patrick’s Day Road Race, has served as a Granby Selectman and has helped with the Granby Food Bank.
“He steps up everywhere,” Reardon said.
The committee has many of the same volunteers year after year, and they work well together.
“They always have great ideas,” she said. “Everybody has a specific thing that they are good at, which is great. Sometimes I wish we were bigger, but I think sometimes it works well to be small.”
The South Hadley contingent’s Irish Night event is Sunday, March 10 at the Castle of Knights on Route 33 in Chicopee beginning at 5 p.m. Tickets, which are $35, include a traditional Irish dinner of corned beef and cabbage, Irish music and an automatic entry into the raffle for a grand prize trip for two to Ireland for a week. The Holyoke Grand Colleen and her court will also make appearances at the event. Tickets can be purchased by calling Reardon at 413-536-7732 or Bill Schenker at 413-536-4646, or emailing Reardon at jr080645@comcast.net.