Then & Now: Celebrating St. Patrick’s Day

Our Then & Now series brings you a nostalgic look at the places and people who have built the community we love. Have some throwback photos to share? We’d love to see them! Email [email protected].

With no St. Patrick’s Day Parade this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, we took a nostalgic look back.

Here’s the button from the first parade.

Tedd Ronning shared this photo that appeared on the front page of the Argus Leader the day after the first St. Patrick’s Day Parade in 1980. “At the original location of Skelly’s. My late mother in law, Anne Nelson, and myself are raising a pint in the front. My soon-to-be wife, Peg Hartenhoff, is looking like a pirate to our right.”

Here’s a look at a couple of other parade buttons, courtesy of Siouxland Heritage Museums and a reader.

Sylvia Henkin was part of the founding group who decided Sioux Falls should have a St Patrick’s Day Parade back in 1979. Henkin was actively involved with the St. Patrick’s Day Extravaganza Committee and the parade until she died in 2018. She served as the grand marshal in 1989 and 2013.

Captain 11, aka KELO-TV weatherman Dave Dedrick, rode in a float in the 1995 parade.

The Khartum Pipe & Drum Corps from Winnipeg, a regular highlight of the parade, marched in the 1995 event.

The Old Courthouse Museum hosted a family dinner and dance after the parade in 2002.

A member of Parrot Heads of the Prairie shared a photo of its float. The group had a float from 2015-18.  “Always a great time!”

The Sioux Falls Irish Club marched with county flags from Ireland in 2016.

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The Greater Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce shared photos of the shamrock painting before the parade in 2017.

Retired newspaper publisher Larry Fuller, whose career included leading the Argus Leader, served as the grand marshal that year.

Experience Sioux Falls shared these photos of the last St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which was held in 2019. It has been canceled for the past two years because of the pandemic.

The St. Patrick’s Day Extravaganza Committee announced that even though there is no parade this year, the traditional painting of the shamrock will take place on St. Patrick’s Day.  The event will begin at 10 a.m. Wednesday in front of Mrs. Murphy’s Irish Gifts, 219 S. Phillips Ave.  The street will be closed at 9:45 a.m. between 10th and 11th.