Member Spotlight – All Schools Day
The All Schools Day executive board hosted a Chamber Connection May 2nd at Knackies Meats & Sweets, 111 S. Maple. As attendees enjoyed coffee and delicious breakfast pastries, 2024 All Schools Day chair Kyler Jost described the week’s plan of festivities and gave a brief history of the county-wide event.
All Schools Day started in 1914 as a way to celebrate the graduation of McPherson County eighth graders. At that time that was the end of many students’ academic careers, and the event gave them an opportunity to be celebrated. The tradition has since grown to celebrate not only our eighth graders, but also fifth graders, kindergarteners, and high school seniors as well as they all commemorate academic milestones.
All of the events that are a part of the All Schools Day week have been organized and/or facilitated by volunteers. Planning and meetings for the 2024 All Schools Day event began back in November 2023. Committee members have worked tirelessly to make All Schools Day happen. Jost actually lives in Kansas City and drives back to McPherson for every planning meeting!
You can expect to see the carnival roll into town today, May 6th, as they begin to set up in preparation for opening Thursday evening, May 9th, in Wickersham Park. Ten percent of all carnival ticket sales through Saturday evening go back to the All Schools Day fund. There will be some fun new pre-parade activities Friday morning including Community Yoga provided by Elysium Studios in Memorial Park and Storytime at the Plaza hosted by the McPherson Public Library, not to mention some pre-parade sales and button bargains. All Schools Day wouldn’t be the same without May Fete, Madathon, or fireworks. And this year there will be a pickleball tournament on Saturday as well as a 5K fun run. A full schedule of the 2024 All Schools Day events, times and locations can be found here.
The highlight of the week, the 111th annual All Schools Day parade will begin Friday at 10:30 a.m. downtown, complete with dignitaries, the ASD royalty, marching bands, and at least 60 floats. If you’re not able to attend in person, Ad Astra Radio will stream the parade on their Facebook page.
“TravelKansas.com said the All Schools Day parade is the largest and longest running parade in the state of Kansas,” said Jost, “so we’re super excited and super thrilled to keep that going.”
Learn more about All Schools Day on their website and follow them on Facebook for updates. And check out photos from the May 2nd Chamber Connection.
