Valerie Grant and Grangerette Haynes sat in Haynes’ SUV at the intersection of South and Washington streets about 3 p.m. Saturday eyeing the spot they had selected to watch the 14th edition of Vicksburg Main Street’s Mardi Gras parade.
“I wanted to get here early to find the best spot, so when the parade begins and they start throwing, I can catch ‘em with my left and my right,” Grand said. “This is a beautiful day.”
“I want to see the beautiful and gleeful children as they catch a surprise they didn’t think they would get,” Haynes said.
Several blocks south on Washington, Renee Hawkins and her husband Jeff from Florence had staked out a place she thought was the perfect vantage point for them to watch their two grandchildren, who were on a parade float. She brought along a camera with a zoom lens to make sure she photographed the children.
“This is our first time for this parade,” Hawkins, a Vicksburg native said. “I rode horses in the Christmas parade.”
A group of four families were posted across the street from the parade’s staging area on Belmont Street.
“We’re just having a picnic,” said Chistie Denley, who added the group came from Utica to watch the parade. “We come to all the parades, and we come to this one every year. It’s the best.”
Grant, Haynes, the Hawkinses and Denley and her friends were among the estimated 4,300 people who lined Washington Street to watch the floats and catch the assorted throws of beads, stuffed animals, cups, moon pies and other treasures that filled the air.

Award-winning local artist Leslie Silver reigned over the parade as queen, wearing beads holding a medallion saying, “It’s Good to be the Queen,” a purple robe and a crown she and a friend fashioned from purple duct tape and poster board and accented with bottle caps. She also had a hand for waving and a scepter made by her daughter.
“I was feeling kind of strange about this until they put this cape on me, wrapped a purple boa around me and gave me this necklace,” she said. “Now I’m fine. What a beautiful day this is.”
Some of the spectators and participants brought their personal parties to the event.
Newlyweds Melissa and Wesley Bennett were married Saturday morning and celebrated with a second line through the alley adjacent to the Sears Towers led by members of the St. Aloysius High School Band to the front of the building, where they took their seats for the parade.
“I grew up in Vicksburg, and Wesley is from the New Orleans-Baton Rouge area,” she said. “We thought we’d have a Mardi Gras theme and watch the parade. I graduated from St. Al, and was in the band.”
“I liked the idea,” Wesley Bennett said. “We’re bringing a little Louisiana to Mississippi.”
At the parade staging area, where a mixture of rock, country and Cajun music filled the air, the members of the float, “Whitt’s Birthday Krewe” were burning off a little energy before joining the parade. The float honored Whitt Loper’s fifth birthday.

“I thought it would be a good idea,” his mother, Holly Loper said. “We had the parade, and his birthday is in February, so it was something different.”
Whitt and his classmates from the First Baptist Church Preschool had a party with cupcakes after the parade.
While parade participants completed getting in formation, the residents and guests at the Valley Apartments and the people on the judges’ platform got the crowd revved up tossing beads, plush animals and plastic footballs to the spectators.
The large crowd of adults and children gathered under the balcony at the Valley to catch the goodies tossed from above, while a crowd gathered alongside and behind the judges’ platform with outstretched arms to catch the prizes tossed through the air.
The floats and assorted vehicles covering the route continued the excitement with their own goodies. The Danny Hearn Trucking Co. float caught the crowd’s attention when it released a cloud of balloons on Washington Street and used a compressed air gun that fired throws high in the air.
“I was very proud of the turnout,” Main Street executive director Kim Hopkins said. “Everyone had a good time and the weather was beautiful.”
Danny Hearn Trucking won best in show for the parade. Other winners were:
• Best in Business: Sheffield Rental.
• Best Non-Profit, Vicksburg District Corps of Engineers.
• Best Throws, Mississippi Paranormal Research Institute.
• Most original, Robin Lea State Farm.
• Most enthusiastic, McAllister’s Deli.
• Best recreational club, BDBC ATV.