The grand marshal of the annual Saturday-before-Thanksgiving PRIDE Christmas Parade is Tom Trombley, chief curator at the Castle Museum of Saginaw County History, so how about some history of Holidays in the Heart of the City?
The parade has become the signature closing event, but until the middle 1990s it was pretty much the only thing. Nobody would have envisioned Christmas lighting ceremonies at the waterworks or at City Hall, or pony rides at courthouse gazebo, or gingerbread houses at Andersen Center, or a free showing of “Home Alone” at the Court Theater.
The dozens of Friday evening options make the parade, with a route from The Dow Event Center to Ojibway Island, sort of icing on the cake. And by the way, a gingerbread house competition also remains on the agenda.
Three decades ago, organizers aimed to add some sparkle and pizzazz, expanding along the South Washington corridor into the parks system and across the Court Street Bridge into Old Town. The PRIDE volunteers found partners who were ready and willing, and Holidays in the Heart of the City was born.
“This has worked out really well. It has become quite a tradition,” Chairwoman Kathy Reis says. “We started out with parents bringing their kids, and now they are bringing their grandkids.”
PRIDE, Positive Results in Downtown, is honoring Trombley for 40-plus years with the Castle Museum, where he now serves as vice president as well as chief curator. He recently received a lifetime tribute from the Historical Society of Michigan.
Trombley started his career at the Castle Museum of Saginaw County History in 1981 as its curator of collections.
He was a construction specialist with Neighborhood Renewal Services of Saginaw, played an instrumental role in restoring and interpreting the formal garden at the Saginaw Art Museum and researched plans for the restoration of the museum’s E. Irving Couse Gallery, the release states.
