Tater Daze Craze

Our station does parades in a really big way. I hope to share some of that in a future post, but in the interest of this post not becoming too dated... I wanted to go ahead and get some Tater Daze pictures up.

In the 8-cities we cover, each has a parade during the summer. Marching bands are a big deal here, and some high school bands compete in 20-something parades all over the state during the summer. The local high school, Park Center, had the honor of leading this parade. Local politicans ride in cars. Each city's "royality" has a float. Local businesses have a float. Boy scouts and girl scouts and basketball teams and hockey teams march. (they put the goalie on a float, though) Churches have floats. Dance studios march and perform little routines along the way. Cheerleaders stop to do stunts. Senior citizens ride with their excerise groups. If people don't find a way in the parade, they watch.

Our parade season kicked off on Thursday with a very large parade, Tater Daze. We aired it live in a 3-hour broadcast. I got to be the roving reporter for the first parade--which means I ran up and down a stretch of the parade route jumping in cars or falling in with a boy scout troop, getting the attention of a photographer, then riding or marching down the route while interviewing someone live. Sometimes the float slowed down so I could jump in; most of the time they didn't. From the time I saw a picture of a reporter broadcasting from a giant potato, I knew I just had to get a ride in the giant potato.

Tater Daze pays tribute to Brooklyn Park's potato farming history. The city doesn't have any potato farms now, but they do have corporate headquarters for Caribou Coffee and Target. They are the 5th largest city in Minnesota, and can also claim Jesse Ventura as mayor before he later became governor. Although several residents like to overlook that claim. It's a diverse community, and residents packed the parade route hours before the floats started to roll.

I interviewed 30-something people, which included a mosquito on rollerblades, the Godfather, a clown, the grand marshall, conservationist, exercising seniors, boy scouts, girl scouts, a drum line, a parent and volunteer, a giant potato, a tow truck driver, cheerleaders, karate-chopping kids, hockey kids, baristas, grocery store managers, sisters named Darla and Darlynn (and you thought the South just had funny names) and more that I've forgotten. My fingers got whacked with drumsticks while climbing on a senior exercise float. My head got pegged with a basketball while standing by a Timberwolves goal (the crowd loved that). And my feet were so sore.

But I loved every minute of it.