Derby Days News from 1999

From the archives of The News Register comes this write up of Derby Days 1999.

Bill Clinton led Saturday's Yamhill Derby Day parade, pedaling down Highway 47 in front of veterans carrying the U.S. and Oregon flags.

Before he set out on his bicycle, the man in the rubber Clinton mask paused to congratulate Derby Day Queen Jaylynn Logan and her court, Annie Block, Katie Enos and Melanie Johnston. He gave a presidential greeting to grand marshals Toot and Rosemary Rush Laughlin.

Along the parade route, Mitchell McCaw paid no attention to the Clinton impostor. The 4-year-old kept his eyes mostly on the ground, harvesting the bounty of candy tossed from passing floats.

Only the animals distracted him from the candy. "I like the horses better than the dogs, and I like the llamas," Mitchell said as the Saddle Dusters 4-H Club clopped by.

The parade also featured a pig, chickens, goats and a few dinosaurs, which Mitchell explained were not real. The animals alternated with a loaded log truck, bicycle riders, John Deere tractors from 1935 and the present, emergency vehicles, a school bus and an easy chair billed as "The ugliest chair in the world ... Elvis could have sat here."

The parade included costumed walkers, too. Among them was 11-year-old Nicole Wilson, dressed as a suffragette.

"Women getting the vote was a very grand event," Nicole explained. She said her mother, Rebecca, told her about the fight for women's rights and helped her find clothes representing the early part of the century.

In keeping with the parade theme, "That was the century that was!" other costumed people represented various decades. One float featured a flapper, Shirley Temple, a veteran, an astronaut, Captain Picard, Princess Di and a Teletubby.

Another group of children portrayed characters from "The Wizard of Oz" - including several witches, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and a drowsy Cowardly Lion cub, played by 1-year-old Garrett Scales.

Hannah Morris, 2, wore Dorothy's blue gingham dress and tiny ruby slippers and carried a basket filled with a stuffed dog.

"Hannah loves 'The Wizard of Oz.' She watches it almost every day," said her aunt, Danielle Webb, who came up with the parade idea.

Hannah, busy licking a blue lollipop, wouldn't comment.

As "The Wizard" group and others passed by, Mitchell sometimes laughed at all those funny costumes. Still, he was interested mostly in the candy. Once in a while he ran over to his dad or to other spectators to show them how much he'd gathered.

"Look, look!" he chortled, holding up a fistful of suckers. "Red ones!"