((Update: Parade canceled due to expected bad weather.)) Honoring Hilliard’s Veterans: Nov. 10
Led by local veterans and marching bands, Hilliard’s Veterans Day parade will celebrate military service with community support
Hilliard’s Veterans Day parade will be staged at 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 10.
The William R. Schnug American Legion Memorial Post 614 and the Capt. Nicholas J. Rozanski Veterans of Foreign Wars Memorial Post 4931 are staging the parade, which steps off at 2 p.m. Nov. 10 from Gate 4 at the Franklin County Fairgrounds, 4100 Columbia Street.
The parade will proceed onto Main Street, southwest toward Scioto Darby Road, then west on Scioto Darby Road and conclude at the Veterans Memorial inside Roger A. Reynolds Municipal Park, 3800 Veterans Memorial Drive.
Hilliard has hosted a Veterans Day parade since 1984 when the 12th District of the American Legion accepted the invitation of then Hilliard Mayor Roger Reynolds to stage the parade in Hilliard.
Through 2018, the parade was held on Nov. 11 regardless of the day of the week on which it fell, in keeping with having the parade on Nov. 11.
It was canceled in 2019 owing the inclement weather and was not observed in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2021, parade organizers opted to hold parades in the afternoon on the Sunday immediately prior to Nov. 11, in order to encourage attendance in the daytime on weekends, rather than evenings in the dark, and to make road closures for the parade less inconvenient.
Nov. 11 is known as Veterans Day today because it was the day in 1918 that battle ended in The Great War, known now as World War I.
The grand marshal of Hilliard’s 2024 Veterans Day parade is Norwich Township Trustee Chuck Buck, a U.S. Air Force Veteran who served in the Air Force and reserve Air Force from 1971 to 1977.
Buck and his brother, Steve, and their parents, the late Charles and Marianna Buck, founded Buck & Sons Landscape Service, Inc., in 1972, a third-generation family-owned business on Hayden Run Road.
Participants and floats for the parade are still being organized, said Tom Rowe, commander of William R. Schnug Memorial Post 614.
For further information about the parade, email inquiries to: hilliardvetparade@yahoo.com.
Organizations expected to participate include the Hilliard Davidson High School marching band, and Junior ROTC clubs at Franklin Heights High School and Grove City High School.
Prior to the parade, Post 614 will offer its 39th annual Bean and Cornbread Dinner.
The meal is free but donations are welcomed to support the American Legion’s Gifts for Yanks Program, which provides Christmas gifts for veterans at VA homes and VA hospitals in Ohio.
The dinner is 4 to 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 1 at the Hilliard Church of Christ, 4300 Avery Road.