By Vernon Robison

Moapa Valley Progress

Photo by Vernon Robison.

Members of the American Legion Post 75 are making final preparations for this year’s Veterans Day Parade. The Parade will be held on Friday, November 11 on the main street in downtown Overton and will begin at 10:00 a.m.

The parade will be started off this year with a fly-over from a Metropolitan Police Department helicopter.

This year the Grand Marshall of the parade will be Overton businessman Heber Tobler. Tobler is the owner of Home Hardware/True Value at S. Moapa Valley Blvd.

Tobler opened the hardware store 26 years ago on October 17, 1985. The store began in only a small portion at the front of the large downtown building. Since that time, the store has expanded several times until now it utilizes the entire building and has had to ad a Lawn and Gardening center behind the store as well.

“We wanted to recognize Heber for the integral part he has been in the Moapa Valley business community all these years,” said American Legion Commander Dennis Vance.

The parade will have more than 25 entrants this year, Vance said. One new entrant will be the Chaparral High School ROTC program with a total of nearly 250 marching cadets.

The route for the parade will be changed slightly from past years in order to allow for better traffic flow through town. The parade will start, as it always has, just above the Overton Library; and staging in the are just across from the North Shore Inn. But this year’s parade will end just above Perkins Ave. At that point, parade participants will be directed either to the east of the street behind the Books Etc. building; or to the west to the parking lot of the Qualheim Insurance office building.

That will allow for through traffic to be routed from Whitmore on the north end of the parade barricades, along an alternate route ending at Perkins south of the parade route, Vance said.

American Legion volunteers will be putting up road barricades at around 9:00 a.m. which will close off the highway just past Whitmore and send through traffic on the detour.

Immediately following the parade, at around noon, the Veterans Day Community Picnic will begin at the Overton Park. This event is sponsored by the Moapa Valley Chamber of Commerce. All in the community are invited. The picnic lunch is free to the public.