It’s not as if Frank Young woke up one morning and, on a whim, decided to single-handedly put on a parade that would celebrate everyday heroes, cost six figures and tie up downtown Denver traffic for hours.
He gave it a lot of thought first.
“We were kicking around ideas of how we could honor all our veterans, our firefighters,” Young said.
By “we,” he’s including his fellow volunteers at the philanthropic organization he co-founded, Trinity Community Services Foundation.
That was in January. By the end of February, the idea had crystallized, and on March 1, he sat down at his desk at Trinity headquarters – the converted lobby of a one-time motor lodge called the Doll House on West Colfax Avenue – and dialed the mayor’s office.
The Colorado State Parade of Honor, featuring local military groups, law enforcement squads, rescue teams and, of course, marching bands, is set to begin winding through downtown at 10 a.m. Saturday. The event will be a new endeavor for the 3-year-old Trinity group, which ordinarily focuses its efforts on needy veterans, battered women and terminally ill children.
But it is a venture that has come to consume the 55-year-old Young and his considerable energies.
“It’s time we as citizens stand up and not wait for another 9/11 and recognize those who are working on a daily basis to preserve our rights as citizens,” he said.
Six months, dozens of meetings, a fistful of permits and $180,000 after he started, Young says he has lined up 238 marching units, arranged a military-jet flyover and secured Lee Greenwood – the John Wayne of country music – as grand marshal.
Young has managed to do all this while still attending to his for-profit enterprise: operating the Doll House restaurant, located just across the driveway from Trinity’s office.
3-day extravaganza next year
Young is convinced he’s starting small. Next year’s event, he vows, will be a three-day extravaganza of concerts, tributes and marching bands.
They may seem small-scale to him, but Young’s current plans, as well as his drive and perseverance, have many at city hall incredulous, if bemused.
“Is that really going to happen?” Denver police spokesman Sonny Jackson asked.
Jackson said the department is getting calls from invited participants, asking whether the parade is, well, real.
“I tell them I don’t know, but he has a permit,” Jackson said. Beyond that, Jackson added, he stays neutral. “I’m not going to rain on his parade.”
The event is complicated to pull off.
First, there were a couple hundred police departments, fire departments and philanthropic organizations to contact. Participation is by invitation only, Young said.
Then there were the permits and permissions: the city parade permit, another permit to build a reviewing stand and the Federal Aviation Administration’s sign-off on the flyover.
Plus, there were two-way radios to buy and barricades to rent. The barricades alone cost $11,000.
Portable but pricey toilets
Also, there are the portable toilets – without which no parade is either complete or legal. Young rented 30 of them, at $160 each. Delivery and pickup cost an additional $500.
Along the way, Young secured a $4,000 donation from Pepsi and conducted the delicate, back-and-forth negotiations to get Greenwood.
Greenwood, whose “God Bless the USA” has practically shoved Kate Smith and her “God Bless America” right out of the patriotic songbook, will get $20,000.
In exchange, he’ll smile and wave from a convertible, and perform, post-parade, at the Teikyo Loretta Heights Theater on South Federal Boulevard. Tickets, Young said, will be available at the door for $20.
Greenwood’s patriotic paean has made him a parade staple, said his manager, Jerry Bentley.
Greenwood, Bentley said, has “done all the biggies: Macy’s, the Rose parade, bowl parades.”
The Parade of Honor, it should be noted, is not the Tournament of Roses Parade or Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. There will be no rose- petal polar bears rolling down Colfax, no 60-foot Bullwinkles hovering over Speer Boulevard. Honoring heroes of the flesh-and-blood, non-cartoon variety is serious business.
The Macy’s parade website brags about the 10,000 or so volunteers who show up.
To keep things in line during the Parade of Honor, there is Frank Young. And a cast of tens.
“There are about 100 of us,” he said, referring to the Trinity volunteers. But the weight of the event is squarely on Young’s shoulders.
Young talks at length about how the Trinity foundation buys Christmas gifts for kids whose parents can’t. His eyes mist up watching a videotape of a veteran’s funeral, paid for by the Trinity foundation when the man’s family couldn’t.
But he becomes downright taciturn when it comes to talking about his own military service and the motivations behind his philanthropy.
“I couldn’t even begin to answer that question,” he said.
So what made Young think he could just pick up his phone and get the city to shut down Colfax and get Lee Greenwood to fly in to officiate?
Actually, it never occurred to Young that he couldn’t.
“This parade is the world to me,” he said.
Staff writer Karen Augé can be reached at 303-954-1733 or kauge@denverpost.com.
Parade participants
The following groups and organizations are among those that have agreed to participate in the Colorado State Parade of Honor, according to organizer Frank Young:
- Park County Sheriff’s Office
- American Legion Post 10
- Colorado Veterans of Foreign Wars
- Douglas County Sheriff’s Office
- Denver Police Mounted Patrol
- Marine Corps Recruiting Station in Denver
- Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office
- Arvada Police Department
- Morrison Police Department
- Michael Collins Pipes & Drums
- Legacy High School Marching Band
- Littleton H.S. Marching Band
- Heritage H.S. Marching Band
- Adams City H.S. Mariachi Aguilas
- Douglas County H.S. Marching Band
- Denver Citywide Marching Band
- Wheat Ridge H.S. Marching Band
- Lakewood American Legion Post 178
- Evergreen American Legion Post 2001
- Colorado PT Cruiser Club
