By Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — Wellington Area Chamber of Commerce officials were on pins and needles Friday afternoon. They had to make a decision that would change the trajectory of the Kansas Wheat Festival, the premiere community event for Wellington. The skies were a dark blue to the north around 4:30 p.m. and weather meteorologists were forecasting a 70 to 80 percent chance of rain.

But Wellington was about to hold its premiere Festival event, the downtown parade – which easily attracts its greatest number of people. This year’s parade also had 62 registered participants – another strong showing for an event that grows yearly.

Weather cancellations/postponements are par for the course in central Kansas, where the outdoor conditions change as quickly as we change underwear.

Ask any school superintendent or athletic director. But this specific event was different. With school/athletic events, most are self-contained. You cancel a basketball game for one night only to reschedule it for a week or two away. It won’t affect the wrestling match or the band concert the next night.

But with the Wheat Festival parade, there was a significant domino effect. Yes, the parade will affect the separate Wheat Run or the carnival or the band concert. Plus, you don’t have next week to schedule the parade. It’s now or never.

“We decided to pull the plug on the parade for Friday night,” said Wellington Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Valerie Earl. “It was more of a safety issue than anything else.”

Instead, the chamber officials decided to have the parade the next day, with an unusual start time, 9 a.m. on Saturday.

It may not have been the first morning parade Wellington has ever had, but it was most certainly the first this century. And it was sandwiched in between the Wheat Run, hosted by KanOkla to the north on Washington Ave., and the plethora of downtown events at Memorial Auditorium.

The results? For such a drastic change, things went pretty well.

“I think if you asked the Saturday vendors at the art show, they would be pretty happy with the change,” Earl said. “Of course, the crowd was way down on Friday night for the after-parade activities.”

Wellington ended up getting 1.o2 inches of rain when the storm blew through Friday at 5 p.m. The storm activity was pretty much over by 6 p.m., but there were lingering clouds with threats of more precipitation, lightning, and thunder.

If one wants to quibble, the parade could have gone on Friday night at 8 p.m. without a hitch. And it would have been great because the temperatures had plunged to the 70s – making for a perfect summer evening.

But it was too big of a risk. Meteorologists were still predicting more rain. And things were wet. People would have been sitting on wet concrete.

“I couldn’t wait much longer deciding on Friday because we had people come in from Wichita,” Earl said about the 4:30 p.m. decision.

Suffice it to say the morning parade was a huge success. Earl said 49 out of 62 participants could make it to the Saturday morning parade.

“I had people come up to me and say how much they loved it,” Earl said. “It was so much cooler than our normal Friday night parades.”

Her biggest complaint was there were so many people on the east side of Washington Avenue because of the sun hitting those on the west more directly.

As far as the Wheat Run, it was unaffected with the one mile getting run before the start of the parade.

The postponing of the parade most certainly didn’t affect the amount of candy the children collected on Saturday.

The band concert Moneyshot was moved inside to Memorial Auditorium. Although the crowd was significantly cut, people did enjoy the newly air-conditioned facility.

“I want to thank the community and those who worked so hard to adjust,” Earl said. “Everyone had a great time.”

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