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A traditional July 4 parade, with an extra spring in the step, as Juneau celebrates USA at 250
- Mark Sabbatini
- 10 hours ago
- 5 min read
Familiar floats get extra flourishes, new entries mark historic semiquincentennial and snowmageddon, and a young grand marshal regains his footing
By Mark Sabbatini
Juneau Independent
DeeDee Martin, says she decorated her school bus much the same as previous Fourth of July parades, but did add a few special flourishes for the nation’s 250th birthday.
"Basically we added more onto it," she said.
That was a fitting description in general for the annual July parade through downtown Juneau that started at exactly 11 a.m. Saturday under cloudy, but rainless skies. There were scores of traditional entries, many highlighting the semiquincentennial, and some new additions that invoked the historic occasion as well as other notable occasions such as the past winter’s record-setting snowmageddon.
The familiar yellow bus driven by Martin, 67, a lifelong Juneau resident and school bus driver since 1988, won the award as the best-decorated vehicle in the parade. It was draped with U.S. flags on the windows; red, white and blue streamers beneath them; and various 250th commemorative banners, emblems and stickers.
The design just came "out of our heads," Martin said, referring to others riding in the bus with her. "Since it was special I ordered the banners."
Melody Sperl said her family’s award-winning float, for best commercial entry, was inspired in part by snowmageddon. It featured her son, Rye Sperl, and his wife, Tori Talley, as bears in the back of a pickup truck that was hauling a trailer with two kayaks — one occupied by two girls throwing candy, the other seemingly smashed dramatically in half by a whale’s tail.
"That kayak got smashed in this heavy snow this winter," Melody Sperl said. "They wanted like 300-some dollars for us to drop it at the dump and it's like, ‘OK, we can't afford that. Let's, let's use it in the Fourth of July float instead.’"
The Americana element of the entry came from red, white and blue Subarus accompanying the float, Talley said. She and her husband own Like A Local, a car rental company that targets cruise ship passengers. It’s their company’s first parade entry, although she said she’s been in past parades with her church and her dad as part of Juneau Volunteer Firefighters.
Another snowmageddon entry was one of the winter service vehicles from Juneau International Airport, with the plow in front replaced with a sign proclaiming it helped keep "the only road in & out of Juneau open in the 2025-2026 snowmageddon winter" that set a record with more than 200 inches of snow.
A fair weather entry, so to speak, was a 1929 Ford Roadster convertible owned by Fred Thorsteinson, a Juneau resident since 1957, who was driving the king and queen regents for the Juneau Igloo of Pioneers of Alaska. He said he drives it "on nice days" — and in about 15 years of driving in the parade somehow he’s managed to avoid rain each time.
"I don't like to take it out in the rain too much, because then I have to clean up underneath the undercarriage and everything," he said.
Thorsteinson was wearing attire to match his vehicle, with a 1920s suit and derby hat, but to make it fit for the Fourth he also had a red bow tie and a white lace garter accentuated with blue.
When asked what grade he would give the United States on its 250th birthday, he said a C-minus.
"It seems like we're moving away from some of the democratic principles that were originally in the Constitution," he said. "It just seems like more decisions are being made for the benefit of political parties than for the American people."
A range of grades and opinions about the nation after a quarter of a millennium was expressed by other parade participants, although a common theme was too much division among people. But Thorsteinson said one notable difference in this year’s compared to past ones he’s been in is "overall this year looks like there's quite a bit of patriotic entries in it."
"Last year there were quite a few controversial entries, I thought, but this year there appears to be more patriotic participation," he said.
New rules by the Juneau Festival Association for this year’s parade stated approved entries "are expected to maintain a Patriotic, Positive and Fun experience for all" and "this is not the time or place to express (your) political opposition, carry picketing signs or incite hateful language." That provoked considerable discussion and controversy in the weeks leading up to the parade, but it didn’t appear to have a significant impact on participants.
An upside-down flag and a "war is illegal" sign carried by people in a "We The People: Protecting Our Democracy" entry were banned, said Paul DeSloover, one of the participants. The entry also had to downsize a nine-foot-high Statue of Liberty replica so the person inside could be wheeled along, but that was because walking in it made for slow going last year.
But people with the group were carrying signs such as "protesting is patriotic" and chanting similar phrases. Other entries that might also be considered forms of protest — such as opposing gun violence and the redevelopment of Telephone Hill — participated without incident.
One entry in particular who had no trouble with freedom of expression was Cade Jobsis, 5, one of the parade’s three grand marshals, as he ran to-and-fro along the street much like any kid his age — a remarkable feat since he’s been in a walker most of the past two years after being diagnosed with hereditary spastic paraplegia. He was selected in April to receive a rare treatment made possible in part by extensive fundraising by his parents and others in the community.
"We did it!" a banner on the grand marshal vehicle that Cade spent some of the parade in, waving at times to the crowd from the sunroof. "Thank you Juneau."
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.
More photos from the 2026 downtown Juneau Fourth of July parade. (All by Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Independent)
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