On Monday, the Komar family from Surrey got up early and headed to Fort Langley, where they staked an early claim to a bench along the May Day parade route, the first one they have attended.
“We got up at 7,” Douglas Komar explained, noting that he and wife Angie, and their kids, Joseph and Daniella, weren’t even the earliest to set up along the route.
“I’m seeing parking spots getting scooped up,” Douglas noted.
Arriving early turned out to be a sound strategy, with thousands filling the streets for the 100th anniversary of the annual event, and the first one since COVID restrictions were eased.
At the May Queen breakfast that morning, newly-named Queen Mother Judy Budo was getting tips from Violet Yanush, who was queen mom seven years earlier.
“Just give them the royal wave,” Yanush advised Budo, demonstrating an energy-conserving twist of the wrist.
Budo burst into laughter when she was asked if she’d been practicing her wave.
“No,” she admitted, smiling.
They were part of the court of Taiya Yardley, a Grade 7 student at Coghlan school in Aldergrove.
Yardley was crowned the 2022 May Queen last month at the Royal Party Tea fundraising event held at the historic Fort Langley community hall, along with maids of honour, Aurora Amtstutz and Kathleen Dix and Isabella Sitter.
READ ALSO: May Queen crowned in Fort Langley
There was a brief spatter of rain shortly before the parade started rolling, then the skies dried up.
After the final parade entry passed through downtown Fort Langley, there was a mass migration to nearby Fort Langley Park where Willoughby Elementary School students performed the traditional May Pole dance for queen and court.
Jonathan Meads, a member of the parade organizing committee, called the turnout “incredible.”
While exact attendance figures could not be estimated, “I would say it was close to a record,” Meads told the Langley Advance Times.
“I think the day was a success. We got lucky with the weather.”
Meads credited the hard work by volunteers, in particular the Fort Langley Lions Club, for making it possible.
“Without the Lions, it wouldn’t happen,” Meads observed.
“There were people working in the park from 8 a.m. on [to prepare], and none of them got to see the parade,” Meads noted.
READ ALSO: 100th annual May Day Parade to be “bigger and better”
More images from the day can be viewed on the Langley Advance Times Facebook page here and here.
Is there more to the story? Email: dan.ferguson@langleyadvancetimes.com
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