Springdale schedules another 'Reverse Parade' honoring high school seniors

The “Reverse Parade” is coming back to Springdale.

Officially known as the Senior Parade, it is scheduled for Tuesday, May 25 at 6 p.m. The rain date is the following evening.

It’s hosted by the Springdale High School Alumni Association and Dynamo Education Foundation.

An event borne out of the pandemic, the “Reverse Parade” was first held last year as a safe way to honor graduating seniors at Springdale High School.

The idea being that rather than parading in cars while onlookers lined the streets, the students would do the reverse — stand along the road where they could safely socially distance as carloads and truckloads of family and friends drove by saluting them.

The idea was the brainchild of 2020 Springdale graduate Marina McCutcheon, now a freshman at Slippery Rock University. At first, she was worried that no one would show up.

“I was kind of nervous thinking ‘would our class be lining the street and have somebody’s mom drive down the street and that’s it?’” McCutcheon said. “It turned out that we had a ton of people drive by, and it went on for a long time. It was just cars back to back to back. So, it was very cool.”

This year McCutcheon said she plans to be in one of the cars driving down Lincoln Avenue saluting the seniors.

Allegheny Valley School District Public Relations Director Jan Zastawniak said the “Reverse Parade” is well on its way to becoming an annual event.

“The kids enjoyed it, the community enjoyed it, and the parents enjoyed it,” said Zastawniak. “They decorated their cars, they had signs, they had balloons. It was just a really great event.”

Frank DePoli, president of the Springdale High School Alumni Association, works on the parade committee. He said the event is a just reward for seniors who have had to deal with so many disruptions caused by the covid-19 crisis.

“This (2021) class has been struggling with covid disruptions for a year-and-a-half,” DePoli said. “They were affected as juniors and now they’re being affected as seniors. So, to give them a nice little parade, a nice little sendoff, everybody agreed ‘let’s do it again.’”