Summit Hill Memorial Day Parade

Each year the parade committee sponsors a house decorating contest. Every house in Summit Hill is eligible (including White Bear and Mountain Top Road). This is judged over Memorial Day Weekend. We also sponsor a float decorating contest for participating floats with a patriotic theme. This is judged during the parade. Judges are not residents of Summit Hill. Monetary prizes are given for both!

Countdown to the Parade

Welcome to the Summit Hill Memorial Day Parade!!!

Parades have always played a big part in the life of the people of Summit Hill. For over 100 years all kinds of parades have been held—rain or shine, winter or summer. However, the most famous parade in town is its Memorial Day Parade.

Summit Hill is home to 13 cemeteries and every year thousands of people from near and far come to pay their respects and place flowers on the graves of family and friends. The town swells with a festive atmosphere of those renewing old friendships as well as remembering our fallen heroes. Over the weekend there are several services honoring the dead. A roll call of deceased veterans, recitations of Logan’s General Orders, Flanders Field and the Gettysburg Address all honor those who sacrificed their lives for the freedoms we enjoy today.

Since the 1920’s, school children were required to march and attendance was mandatory. In the late 1940’s, after World War II, the parades became even larger.

The towns of the Panther Valley joined together their high school and Legion bands with renewed patriotism and the streets were lined with people not only celebrating the return of a new group of veterans but also remembering those who made the supreme sacrifice and gave their lives.

Today the town of Summit Hill continues to celebrate Memorial Day. Monday morning the people of town turn their attention to honoring veterans with a memorial service in Ludlow Park. After the service, a 4 division parade winds throughout the town paying tribute to the men and women who have so bravely served our country.

Midas to lead Summit Hill Memorial Day parade

BY WILLIAM O’GUREK

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The Summit Hill Memorial Day Parade Committee has selected longtime Legionnaire Clem Midas to be to be the grand marshal of the 2024 parade, Carbon County’s largest tribute to America on Memorial Day.

Midas, a resident of Summit Hill, will lead the three-division parade that will step off at 11 a.m. Monday, May 27, after the traditional memorial service that will begin at 10 a.m. in the center of Ludlow Park.

“I’m very honored to even be considered,” said Midas. “My first reaction is there has to be other people more deserving, and so I was initially reluctant to accept the role. But it’s a great honor. I know my parents would be very proud of this. My father (Clem Sr.) and his four brothers (Tom, John, Michael and Henry) all enlisted in the Army during World War II, and so I will lead the parade as a proud representative of all veterans, but especially those from Post 316 and my family.”

Midas will ring the old Summit Hill High School bell in Ludlow Park to signal the start of the parade, which will proceed west on Ludlow Street, round St. Joseph Catholic Church of the Panther Valley and then proceed east to the cemetery complex at the extreme end of the community.

Parade committee chairman Thomas Vermillion said of Midas, “Clem was a unanimous choice of both the American Legion and the parade committee. He is a longtime member of the community and has influenced the lives of so many people from Summit Hill and the surrounding areas over the years.

“Hundreds of people worked for Clem during his career at Silberline Manufacturing, most of which are from the immediate area. I personally know Clem and his family, and know what a popular and respected guy he is. He’s a great asset to the Legion and the Summit Hill community.”