New parade organizers are up to the challenge

If this year's Dundee Township Memorial Day parade steps off on time, is marched under sunny skies and has no fights, Bobbi Andresen will be happy.

She and her husband, Ken, are the new coordinators for the May 25 parade. They agreed to take it over from Fred and DeLoris Doederlein, who coordinated it for decades.

"We're not going to reinvent the wheel," said Bobbi, a Carpentersville resident. "It's always been a well-organized parade. It's not going to be easy, but it will be fun."

Months of writing letters, seeking approvals and contacting marching units pushed the Doederleins into semi-retirement from the parade, DeLoris said.

"There's a lot of things to do, a lot of deadlines to meet," Bobbie said. "We have to ask permission from East and West Dundee and get approval from the state (department of transportation) to close off a section of Route 72. There's about 100 letters to send out."

Some of them will go out, to politicians, Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops, band members of local schools and police officers and firefighters.

And when she doesn't receive immediate responses, more telephone calls and more letters.

"I just want this to be a nice parade with as many people as possible marching and more people watching it," she said. "It will be great if we didn't have any fights."

The schedule will be the same. Marchers will start at 2 p.m. at Van Buren Street in East Dundee. They will walk along Route 72, over the Fox River bridge to Cal Grafelman Park in West Dundee. There, George Kramer, a World War II veteran, will speak to the crowd.

Pretty simple, right? Well, one of the decision the Andresens have to make is what unit will lead the parade. Will it be members of the local VFW Post 2298, which sponsors it and where Bobbi is a member, or will it be the U.S. Marine Corps Drill team?

"There's a lot of decisions to make," she said.

But if there is a fight, she's the person to break it up. She spent six years in the U.S. Air Force as a military police officer. If a decision can't be made, she'll call the Doederleins, who will be on hand to provide counsel, DeLoris said.

"What's going on in the country and with the military set the mood for (Memorial Day) parades. We have fighting going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. And we have other troops stationed throughout the world," she said. "We want to honor all the military, living and dead."

To help with the parade, call Bobbi at (847) 224-8683.