KC Murphy admits he’s anxious for Thursday to arrive, bringing back a Peoria tradition of the past four decades.
“I can't even describe how excited I am. I mean, the cliché is: this is my Christmas,” said Murphy, the event chairman of the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade that returns this week after a two-year hiatus brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
This year’s parade starts at 11 a.m. and features a modified route beginning at the corner of Monroe Street and William F. Kumpf Boulevard, near the Peoria Civic Center. Murphy said he’s ready for the long wait to finally be over.
“It's been two years of not only no parade, but two years of having the rug pulled out right from under us, it seems,” he said. “The first year of COVID, obviously it was in the 11th hour when the parade was canceled. The next year, we tried to have one and it just didn't go.”
Those cancellations resulted in a delayed 40th anniversary celebration, as the St. Patrick Society of Peoria started hosting the annual parade in 1981, rain or shine. Murphy said scrapping the 2020 parade on short notice as COVID-19 emerged was a difficult blow.
“That was miserable. Everyone was all excited; we're all ready to go, and then it’s, ‘Oh, OK. We're not going to do it now.’ Having to be the bearer of bad news was just no fun,” Murphy said. “Also, nobody really knew what was going on yet when COVID was first starting.
“So there was all sorts of problems with that: the stages of grief, denial, and all that — and bargaining, like maybe we can have the parade and not hand out candy and beads, and maybe make it a touch free event. Then it just ended up that we couldn't do anything at all.”
Murphy said he’s technically been the parade chairman for five years now, making this his third actual parade where he’s in charge, although he previously volunteered with the St. Patrick Society for several years. He said he’s seen how St. Patrick’s Day celebrations seem to have grown larger over the years.
“If I had to guess, it's just really one of the first springtime events,” he said. “Everyone's been cooped up all winter, and all of a sudden there's a big parade where everyone can go and be outside. Maybe everyone has a chance to gather and just have fun. So I think that has a lot to do with it.
“Everyone wants to be Irish for some reason. Everyone wears green and the ‘Kiss me I'm Irish’ hats. I think it's just a really fun time.”
Murphy said more than 100 entries have registered to participate and he's expecting a large turnout. He said some of the attractions people can expect to see include family-owned fire engines, a roller skating leprechaun ballerina, and a “flying pig.”
“The Peoria Rugby Team, that's their traditional float: a flying pig. It's a really interesting Rube Goldberg-type mechanism,” Murphy said. “You have to see it to believe it.”
And what are Murphy’s responsibilities as the event chair?
“Well, I make 150 cars drive in the same direction when I say, ‘Go.’ That's really what it comes down to,” he said.
And while that is no small feat, there actually is a bit more to it.
“We start planning in November, and I've got a great committee that helps with the online stuff and the judges’ stand, the audio, that kind of thing,” he said. “My responsibilities are pretty much coordinating everything they do, fielding all the applications, making sure the fees are turned in on time, and then arranging all the floats and entries to make sure that we have a visually appealing presentation that goes from start to finish.”
Murphy estimates the parade will last about an hour as floats proceed down Monroe, turn right on Main Street, then left on Adams Street and ending at Hamilton Boulevard.
“I am encouraging the Monroe Street stretch of the parade, I'm hoping that'll be like our family-friendly area,” said Murphy. “It's a little far away from the bars, and that way it's a safe place to bring the kids and they can jump out and get candy and beads. I mean, the whole parade route is good, but I want to kind of promote that as our family-friendly area.”
Murphy said it’s difficult to say precisely just how big of a crowd typically comes out for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
“I do remember in 2016, I was grand marshal of the parade and I stuck a GoPro camera to the convertible I was riding in, and at one time I actually tried to use that to count the number,” he said. “Of course, there's no way to do that. I can tell you, though, that Main Street is absolutely packed to the gills.”
