UPDATE: Officials said on Thursday that the festival will include a parade after all, which was decided at a board meeting on Aug. 1.
“We know the parade is a highly anticipated part of the festival and we are glad to announce it will be happening again this year as part of the 44th Annual Fall Festival,” said Dr. Mark Harwood, Vice President of the Coweta Chamber.
The parade will occur the morning of the Aug. 15.
UPDATE: Coweta Chamber of Commerce board decided to include the parade in the fall festival this year. The parade will be on the morning of September 15th. The board says the route is still TBD, and they will need more volunteers to help out @KJRH2HD pic.twitter.com/jzM6REnmGn
— Laurene Callander (@laurene_kjrh) August 2, 2018
Original story:
COWETA -- The Coweta Chamber of Commerce Director, Carrie Allamby, says the board voted unanimously to cancel the fall parade, which runs during the annual fall festival.
Last year organizers changed the parade route away from the festival on Broadway Street, to go along Highway 51, with the help of a lane closure.
Allamby says they added extra security measures, like water-filled barriers to block vehicles from driving through the crowd.
Allamby says organizers met with emergency personnel from OSU back in the spring, to learn from their experience after the 2015 tragedy of a woman drover her car through barricades at OSU Homecoming, killing four people and injuring dozens of spectators.
She says with the added event this year of the Tour de Cow Town Bike Ride happening on the same day as the parade, they don't have enough emergency personnel to cover all grounds.
"There was a lot of backlash last year when we changed the route from a parade being driven down in the middle of a festival, yes it was that way for many, many years, the world isn’t the same as it was many many years ago unfortunately," said Allamby.
The 44th annual fall festival is slated for September 13th through the 15th. The bike ride is on the last day of the festival.
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