Happy Trails Parade arrives in town after eight-year hiatus

By Jeff Cooper
Apple Valley Review

A once longstanding Apple Valley tradition is making a comeback this weekend.

The Town is bringing back the Happy Trails parade in the historic Village area.

The annual parade took a hiatus eight years ago. Before then, origins of mid-October community events had a long legacy in Apple Valley.

Old pictures on social media show records of the once titled “Pow Wow Days” dating back to 1947 with a steak fry.

Apple Valley Town Councilman Scott Nassif was a child when his parents moved to Apple Valley in 1959. He said he remembers the fall weekend, as a kid in the ’60s, once kicked off by a parade on Saturday morning followed by cattle round-ups, pancake breakfasts and carnivals.

“That was a tradition out here,” Nassif said. “They had rides and American Indians were involved at that time. They used to have an honorary mayor every year and it all tied to the Pow Wow day parade.”

According to Nassif, when it came to a point where the Indians couldn’t participate and the event had to drop the Pow Wow, it was then turned into the “Round-Up Days.”

Marcella Taylor of the Apple Valley Legacy Museum reels with excitement about keeping the legacy alive.

“I think it’s great that they’re bringing it back,” Taylor told the Apple Valley Review. “The Village Artist Collective is reviving the Village area and (bringing back the parade) is part of it. I hadn’t seen the parade until the ‘90s and it’s been eight years that the parade has been missing. But now that beloved piece of Apple Valley history is returning. There’s an awful lot of excitement in this parade this year.”

The parade will follow the same route as the “old days,” beginning at the corner of Central Road and Outer Highway 18, then traveling west to Pawnee Road, left onto Pawnee and dispersing at Powhatan Road. The route is about 1 mile long.

Longtime resident Art Taylor, once part of the Apple Valley Fire Protection District, remembers the early days of the parade.

“I remember chasing burros down the street in the mid ’70s,” Taylor said. “I remember we had a bull who would not move, every step I took, I took three steps back. After about 200 yards, I finally gave up.

“I had to be ‘Smokey the Bear’ for a couple years and I was dying of the heat for a couple years,” he said with a laugh.

Taylor remembers in 1994 when the grandson of Roy Rogers, Dustin Rogers and his wife Julie were the parade’s grand marshalls.

“I think it was ‘98,” Taylor said. “Dusty graduated from Apple Valley High School in ’94. They were pretty young. Afterward Dusty said that the parade was not his style.”

Nassif said that the tradition abruptly stopped eight years ago.

“After (the parade stopped), the Round-Up Days morphed into the chili cook-off,” Nassif said. “Now, we are happy that the Apple Valley Village is bringing back the parade.

“All the service clubs are volunteering, the Kiwanis, Rotary, and Optimist Club to name a few. The (AVFPD) will be on hand. Our judging will be done by our parks commission. The Grand Marshall is Cliff Earp a local personality and business owner.”