Next day it was snowing!
Record crowd of 30,000-plus attend St. Pat’s Parade

       Under warm and sunny skies, an estimated record crowd of more than 30,000 people attended the 22nd annual St. Patrick's Day Parade March 12 in Old Colorado City, according to organizer John O'Donnell. Teller County Fair Princess Shelby Melton waves to the crowd.
       “I have to say that I have never seen so many children there,” he added. As for the crowd, “Of course, the weather played a large part in it.” One of the horses in the Cavalier Trail Riding Club contingent gets a little rowdy.
       People lined both sides of the avenue between 27th and 17th streets for the event, which lasted two hours and numbered more than 100 entries and close to 2,000 participants.
       Grand Marshal Sgt. Robert Wong, recently returned from Iraq, led the parade.
       The pre-parade footraces along Colorado Avenue also set participation records, O'Donnell said. A total of 1,062 adults competed in the 5K, and more than 200 children joined the Leprechaun fun run.
       Regarding the weather, the parade organizers definitely had the luck of the Irish this year. Clouds started gathering the night after the parade, and by the morning of March 13, several inches of snow had fallen. The Rocky Mountain High Wheelers form a line. This unidentifed “bouncy guy,” wearing a springy contraption that accelerated him along at a speedy clip, may have been associated with a bubble-blowing fire truck for the Mystic Events Conference Center, which was one of the last entries in the parade.

Westside Pioneer article