The patriotic hometown parade returns when Kennett Square commemorates Memorial Day on Monday, May 26.

The annual tribute to local veterans is the town's largest parade each year, featuring more than 1,000 participants, and includes antique military vehicles and convertibles, bag pipers, fife and drums, Civil War and Revolutionary War reenactors, color guard groups, high school bands, little league teams and much more. 

Parade participants start to line up between 9 and 9:15 a.m. near the Kennett High School, with the parade itself starting at 10 a.m. The parade begins near the Kennett High School, moves to South Union, proceeds to Cypress Street, cuts onto South Broad Streets, and then turns to East State Street, and then follows North Union Street to the Union Hill Cemetery for the ceremony that honors U.S. veterans who died in service to their country.

Three World War II veterans—Patrick Moran, Raymond E. Kegg, and William A. (Dusty) Rhodes have been chosen as grand marshals for the parade.

Moran joined the Navy on Dec. 3, 1943. His basic training was completed in Samson, New York. He was then shipped to New Orleans, Louisiana. He went to Halifax, Nova Scotia and sent oversees to England to participate in the D Day at Utah Beach. He returned to the United States in the spring of 1945 and was transferred back to Bainbridge, Massachusetts and discharged in June 1946.

Kegg joined the Army Signal Corps on Nov. 2, 1942 and served in the radio station of Asmara, Eritrea until the war ended. He was a radio operator who would copy messages between Germany and Japan in code and send them to Washington to have them decoded. He was discharged on June 2, 1946.

Rhodes enlisted on Feb. 19, 1942. He completed basic training at Newport, Rhode Island. He was sent to join the anti-submarine warfare PBY Air Squadron as a radio operator. He flew on patrols searching and reporting German submarines in the North Atlantic from Newfoundland along the East Coast of the United States to Columbia in South America. He was stationed in Nefoundland, New York, Key West, Cuba, Coco Solo Island, and Columbia. He was discharged on Dec. 14, 1945.

For more information about the Kennett Square Memorial Day Parade, contact Bill Taylor, the chairman of the Parade Committee, at [email protected].