Watch parade for old-fashioned wagon

By Evelyn Gander
Staff Writer

A brand new ``old'' addition to The Great American Brass Band Festival this year is the bandwagon.

Fashioned by Darell Shannon of Bluegrass Carriage Works at the business' Popplewell Road location, the bandwagon recalls days when ``the circus came to town'' in the late 1800s. It carried the circus' musicians in the traditional parade along Main Street, past little boys licking chocolate ice cream cones and little girls holding red balloons.

And this newest bandwagon will be in another parade, about 11 a.m. Saturday, carrying members of The Advocate Brass Band down Main Street to start the eighth annual Great American Brass Band Festival.

``It's going to look just like a 19th century bandwagon,'' Shannon said recently in the middle of final stages of its construction that got under way in May.

Standing about 7 feet high, 5 feet wide and 13 feet long, the bandwagon will be pulled by two draft horses in the Saturday parade.

On top of a running gear with solid oak, red wheels will be the body, or ``box,'' made from yellow poplar and painted white with red and blue lettering. It will be large enough to seat 12, said Shannon, crediting festival organizer George Foreman of Centre College with the vision of how the bandwagon would look.

Volunteer help has been crucial in the project. Festival organizer George Foreman of Centre College emphasized the contributions of lumber from Coleman's Lumber in Harrodsburg, paint from Stuart Powell Ford-Mazda and decorative design and lettering by John Dixon of Dixon Design.

Without these and other forms of support, Foreman estimated the cost of the bandwagon would amount to about $20,000.