Will the Downtown Sarasota Holiday Parade keep marching on?

With just more than an hour before the Downtown Sarasota Holiday Parade festivities are scheduled to begin, Paul Thorpe is having horse problems.

Already, he’s spent more than six hours working to get everything in order for the thousands of people who will march and the tens of thousands who will be watching. Thorpe has organized the event for two decades, but there’s only so much even he can do as participants begin to stream en masse onto Main Street.

Weaving a motorized cart through the crowd and floats in the half-mile staging area, Thorpe is stopped every 20 seconds or so by another volunteer who tells him — again — about the horses.

Eventually, Thorpe arrives at the nexus of the problem. A group’s animal trailer was accidentally rerouted to the wrong area. Now, it needs help navigating to the proper loading zone. Thorpe doesn’t dawdle. He rattles off instructions in an attempt to end the issue as soon as possible.

Hopeful that his advice is sufficient to address the equine hiccup, Thorpe takes another lap around the staging area. He reroutes participants when he notices something awry with the plans he’s spent nearly half the year developing, but never lingers after attempting to put out any given fire.

After a moment of confusion surrounding the placement of cars carrying city commissioners, a volunteer concedes that Thorpe’s directions were correct, joking that the tireless organizer knows everything.

“That’s right,” Thorpe says. “I do know everything.”

Will the parade go on?

This year’s event was the 20th annual Downtown Sarasota Holiday Parade, and Thorpe has been an integral part since the beginning.

That will change next year. At age 89, Thorpe is finally ready to step back from the responsibilities associated with the event.

“My wife would say it’s 24/7,” Thorpe says of the time he’s devoted to his duties in the lead-up to the parade. “In the month or two before, it’s pretty intense.”

Several members of the small team of volunteers he leads are interested in scaling back, too. This raises a question: Can the holiday parade go on without Paul Thorpe?

His dedicated civic support has earned him the moniker “Mr. Downtown.” He’s also served as the organizer of the New Year’s pineapple drop and the Downtown Sarasota Alliance, among a litany of other work focused on improving the heart of the city. 

"He's irreplacable as Mr. Downtown." — Linda Holland

Those who know Thorpe question whether he’ll really let go. This isn’t the first time he’s floated the idea of retirement, and he’s always picked up his mantle for another year, they said.

This time, he says he means it, though. He doesn’t know what the future holds for the parade, but he’s hopeful there’s someone out there interested in picking up where he’s leaving off. So far, he’s had no luck.

“Somebody’s got to have the time and the desire and the heart to want to do it,” Thorpe said. “We haven’t found that person yet.”

Linda Holland, who has volunteered to help organize the event for nearly the entirety of its run, says getting someone capable of filling in for Thorpe is a significant challenge.

“There’s just not anybody who’s more dedicated to the city of Sarasota and will do anything that will make it better,” Holland said. “He’s irreplaceable as Mr. Downtown.”

Parade growth

Thorpe knows running the parade is a demanding job, especially considering its volunteer basis. Still, he thinks it’s a vital part of the fabric of downtown Sarasota.

That’s what motivated him to start the parade in 1974. Working with the Downtown Sarasota Alliance, Thorpe wanted to create some positive energy in what was then a very different area.

“It was a disaster,” Thorpe said. “It was deadsville.”

That parade was smaller, but organizers still embraced spectacle. Thorpe has a personal interest in parades; he never misses the Rose Parade or the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. That year, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey animal trainer Gunther Gebel-Williams led the parade atop an elephant — with a live tiger wrapped around his neck.

"We wanted to give something back to the community." — Paul Thorpe

He’d have to wait years to organize a second parade, but Thorpe continued to go out of his way to create a memorable experience. Lions and tigers from Big Cat Habitat became a regular feature. In 2010, he re-created the elephant display, with then-Mayor Kelly Kirschner and his family sitting atop the animals.

“We passed what used to be the SweetBerries ice cream store, and my son — I think he was 3 at the time — was a big fan,” Kirschner remembers. “He decided he wanted to get some ice cream and tried to jump off of an elephant. Fortunately, we had anticipated something like that, and he had been strapped to my body.”

These grand displays aren’t what makes the parade special to Thorpe. He views it as a vitally important part of the fabric of Sarasota, an opportunity to give groups that are often taken for granted their moment in the spotlight.

“We wanted to give something back to the community,” Thorpe said. “Everybody’s always taking something. We wanted to have the whole community — the little Girl Scouts, the churches — get exposure for what they do.”

With nearly 80 groups participating this year and even more already expressing an interest to join next year, the parade has been a success in that regard.

Reflecting on the 2015 parade, Thorpe says things went relatively smoothly. He gives much of the credit to the other volunteers — at this point, he said, everyone basically knows what to do automatically. The biggest issue, as it turns out, was those horses; the group ultimately ended up leaving the event after running into more problems unloading a horse.

Under Thorpe’s leadership, the parade has become its own (relatively) well-oiled machine. Even as he steps down from his position, he won’t stop keeping an active watch on downtown Sarasota — or searching for his successor until all his options are exhausted, either.

Assuming he’s successful, he’s not likely to miss the 21st annual Downtown Sarasota Holiday Parade. Still, Thorpe is looking forward to a less hectic Christmas season next year.

“It’s time to spend some more time with family,” Thorpe said. “I’ve spent almost 40 years working to make Sarasota a better place.”