After decades of going one way, Butler County’s Memorial Day parade is reversing course.
Butler County Director of Veterans Services John Cyprian made the announcement during Wednesday’s Butler County commissioners meeting that the parade will now proceed north-to-south, meaning it will start at the intersection of Penn and Main streets in downtown Butler and end up at Diamond Park, across from the Butler County Courthouse.
It hasn’t done that for quite some time.
“The direction of the parade is changing,” Cyprian said. “And this is a big change. For 200 years in this county, the parade has traveled south to north, and ended at North Side Cemetery.”
But this year, after the parade, there won’t be a program at North Side Cemetery. Cyprian says this is due to a simple fact: Butler County has a lot of older residents who struggle to march up North Main Street Hill to get to the cemetery for the program.
“We’re moving the program to Diamond Park,” Cyprian said. “That’s what the committee has decided to do.”
The program- which goes through the entire history of Memorial Day- will begin after the parade in Diamond Park.
Cyprian says the parade will start around 10:30 a.m. on Memorial Day- which is Monday, May 27 this year. He encourages people to start coming downtown by 10 a.m.
