By RICK LEVIN

Staff reporter

As the centerpiece to last weekend’s big festival of Dutch-ness, the Holland Happening Grand Parade did a bang-up job. What fun! From beginning to end, it was a fantastic pageant of sight and sound and flung candy, a mobilized gala event presenting everything a small town parade should be, and then some.

Kicking off at 11 a.m. on a somewhat chilly Saturday morning, the long and winding celebration cut a colorful, musical swath through the crowds of young and old assembled along Oak Harbor’s Bayshore Drive.

Quickly, the weather became a negligible factor.

Even before the afternoon sun began to burn away the clouds, the parade succeeded in warming the spirits of the hundreds of folks who came out to enjoy all the oompah-oompahing and square dancing and hand-waving.

Highlights of the hour-long parade included the powerful playing of the Marysville-Pilchuck Marching Band, as well as that of the Coupeville Wolves and the Oak Harbor Middle School Panther Band. The Seattle Seahawk Sea Gals were here again, looking a tad cold in their cheerleader outfits. And various non-profit and charitable organizations and clubs made a good showing: New Leaf, the American Cancer Society, Rent-A-Venture (“will perform any service that is legal or moral”), Boys & Girls Club of Oak Harbor, Avon Against Breast Cancer, Pregnancy Care Clinic, the Child Abuse Prevention Foundation.

The tassel-topped Shriners ran typically tight figure-8 formations in their gassy little cars, and Island County 4-H members, celebrating the organization’s 100th anniversary this year, proudly paraded their well-groomed cats and dogs to the “oohs” and “aahs” of the adoring crowds.

Island County Commissioner Bill Thorn, who recently announced his intention to seek re-election as the sole Democrat on the board, drove by in a shiny red pick-up; Auditor Suzanne Sinclair also made a showing, as did recently-appointed County Clerk and GOP incumbent Jane Koetje, who is seeking election this time around.

Everyone loves a parade, but in the end, it’s all about the kids. Judging from the generally happy response of the little ones — all sent scrambling for tossed treats, or bobbing to the insistent fanfare of marching band music, or giggling at silly clowns — this parade scored an obvious 10 on the Parade-O-Meter.

Long-time Oak Harbor resident Helen Chatfield-Weeks credited the spectacle of “the beautiful Dutch children dancers” with making this Holland Happening one of the “best ever” in its 24 years of existence.

“This needs to be passed to the youth,” she said, “and that’s one reason why I like it.”

Mostly unaware of what was being passed on to them besides candy, most young-uns simply reveled in the moment.

Oak Harbor Elementary first-grader Chantz Rivera, 6, said his favorite part of the event was the clowns. “It’s the first time I’ve seen it,” Rivera said of the parade, adding that he was also impressed by “the Army thing,” a display of big, loud vehicles that motored through at the tail-end of the event.

Adam Peckenpaugh, a 7-year-old who attends Oak Harbor Christian School, declared that the whole thing was “awesome,” and that he collected “about 200” pieces of candy over the course of the parade.

“I liked everything except for the girl stuff,” he said. “I liked the bands.”

His 9-year-old sister McKenna, a student at Broad View Elementary, said she enjoyed the bands, too. She also enjoyed the cheerleaders, she said, and so did Adam, she added.

“Did not!” he argued.

“Uh huh!” she said.

“Nuh uh!” he countered, even more vigorously.

It was a good parade.