The Panama village board is looking into different ways to help organize their annual Memorial Day parade in the future. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

PANAMA– This year’s Memorial Day parade in the village of Panama, while successful as always, saw a few hiccups along the way, prompting a discussion by the village board as to how to make organization of the event easier for next year and in the future.

At the village’s June meeting, mayor William Schneider, who called into the meeting, said he had some ideas to share with the board at next month’s meeting and that he is currently in the process of working on a binder to stay in the village hall for future members of the village board to use to help organize the event.

“Everything is all spelled out, everything that needs to be done, time frames and so forth,” Schneider said. “So, it will make it easier and probably less confusing for some people.”

Code Enforcement Officer Melanie Eddy has also volunteered to be the school liaison for the Memorial Day parade, Schneider said. There will be more conversation at next month’s meeting when Schneider can show the board what he has put together, and he added that the parade was well received as always and that the community always likes it.

“It is an extremely frustrating thing at times because it can seem like outside agencies are hazy about what they want to do and if they want to play a part,” Schneider said.

Additionally, the village has to compete with other events, including things such as Sherman having their own parade this year, so Panama did not get any Sherman participation for theirs. Schneider also noted increasing problems with certain aspects of the parade since losing the local Boy Scouts troop, saying that it has been hard to problem solve around that but that he thinks they have problem solved around the color guard aspect of the parade.

“I spoke with Chief Sheldon after the ceremony and he liked the aspect of having the fire department do that,” Schneider said. “And I think that is an appropriate thing for the fire department to do and it could be one of the things that they do on a regular basis.”

Schneider said they have had the Girl Scouts do it in the past as well, but that they were doing their own thing for the parade this year. Also in the past there were designated groups doing designated things in the parade, but Schneider said these days it is hard because they are competing with other municipalities and organizations that are holding their own Memorial Day celebrations.

“I think we do a good job for what we have been given, but some years it’s more frustrating than others I guess,” Schneider said. “We’ll continue to persevere and I think we’ll be able to gain a new organizational outlook as we move forward.”

Some people have already volunteered for some aspects of the parade next year. The board also briefly discussed and agreed to look into purchasing a podium for themselves for the village for both the parade and to have in the village hall for people to use during the privilege of the floor section of the meeting.

One other big event for the village that is coming up is the village sale days, which are set for June 27 and 28 this year. This is a change from when the sale days were normally scheduled at the end of July, and this change comes following the results of a community survey that the village put out and has gotten back.