The annual Ford Addition kids' parade will be at 6:30 p.m. Thursday after the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new pavilion at Ford Addition Park in Kingsford. The photo shows participants getting ready for a past parade in an unspecified year. The event has taken place in the Ford Addition since 1959. (Submitted by Elizabeth T. Dillman)

KINGSFORD — The Ford Addition parade, a neighborhood tradition for 66 years, will start at 6:30 p.m. Thursday after the ribbon-cutting celebration for the new pavilion at Ford Addition Park in Kingsford.

The annual kids’ parade was started in 1959 by Gloria Boyce of 700 Hamilton Ave., along with her friend, Ann Lagina, as a way to mark the January birthday of Boyce’s son, John, in the summer.

“Since his birthday on Jan. 4 fell in the middle of the cold winter, the Fourth of July was a perfect time for an alternative celebration,” said Boyce’s daughter, Tina Boyce Dillman.

She recalled that the two moms “made newspaper hats for a handful of neighborhood children who decorated their bikes, rode in festive wagons or dressed up to walk around the block.”

Her mother continued the tradition for 20 years.

“As a child, I remember helping my mom with the handwritten invitations — always a poem about the red, white and blue parade. We collected toilet tissue tubes throughout the year to make into red ‘firecrackers’ filled with taffy. After the parade, each child was presented with a vanilla ice cream cone and the candy-filled firecracker. Prizes were awarded for best costumes and bike decorating,” Dillman said.

In some years as many as 75 children took part, she said. High school band students would accompany the parade with music.

The parade has continued with new generations of children and new moms taking over organizing — this year’s event planner is Ashley Peterson. She said the parade will follow the normal practice for the event of kids on bikes and in wagons. Members of the Kingsford High School Band will perform and Kingsford Public Safety will provide a fire truck and police escort. After the parade, they will gather at the new pavilion.

All area children are invited to join in the celebration, she said.

The ribbon cutting for the new pavilion will be at 5:30 p.m. at Ford Addition Park. City officials and members of the Lagina family will take part, although brothers Rick and Marty Lagina, the stars of History Channel’s “The Curse of Oak Island” who each donated $50,000 to build the 20-by-28-foot pavilion, will be unable to attend. The Lagina brothers, along with sisters Marianne and Terese, grew up in the Ford Addition and financed the pavilion in memory of their parents, George and Ann Lagina. They have many wonderful memories of the park, the family said.

The city will serve free hot dogs, chips and soda at the pavilion.

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Marguerite Lanthier can be reached at 906-774-3500, ext. 85242, or mlanthier@ironmountaindailynews.com.