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This story originally appeared in the Jackson Free Press. It was added to the Mississippi Free Press website in 2025.
Note that any opinions expressed in legacy Jackson Free Press stories do not reflect a position of the Mississippi Free Press or necessarily of its staff and board members.

James Rice What is it they say about the Jackson St. Paddy’s Parade? If you remember it, you weren’t really there.

Melissa Burks Dearman Last year when I had all of my grandchildren with me!

Emily Braden Knight The Rude Boyz had a float titled, “I wanna be a Sweet Potato Queen when monkeys fly out my butt” the year the theme was Wizard of Oz. I think they were dressed as flying monkeys.

Shellie Erin Manor It will be this year! We are getting married on St. Patrick’s day! A whole weekend of partying!

Jason Roberson Hahaha! Remember St. Patty’s day? If it was a good St. Patty’s day, you shouldn’t be able to remember …

Ashley Runnels Hmm … The best memories are pretty fuzzy! Many years I had TOO much fun to recall, lol!

Niki Lee Dunbar Two years ago, I met my future husband at the parade!

Andrew Spencer Can’t remember the best ones, but I know we had a good time!


Kathleen Conner Strickland Joining the parade at the last minute–we were in the back of a friend’s classic green pickup truck. 1982? ’83? You could get away with that back then. Afterward, we had an Inez burger. Good times.

Coldwater Flannel Hahaha, not being able to remember my best St. Pat’s memory! Lol.

Colleen Keith Turnage Hands down best parade year was when my best friend Camie and I made our best T-shirts ever, with our team name and logo for CamCo on the front with the back reading:

Whiskey shooting

Beer drinking

Back roads riding

Southern girls!

I would like to note that we rocked our southern pride in parade ’08 before it was cool! Thank you Hal & Mal’s for supporting Mississippi and giving us THE best holiday celebration in Jackson year after year!

Clay Thornton Don’t remember–have I ever gone?

Lisa Alexander Kermit the Frog in the parade!

Janet Mobley Just remember having fun every year with friends!

Mississippi native Donna Ladd and partner Todd Stauffer founded the Jackson Free Press in 2002 in the capital city. The heavily awarded local newspaper did many investigations heralded across the state and nation and served as a paper of record due to its diversity, inclusion, in-depth reporting and deep connection to readers and dedication to narrative change in and about Mississippi. In 2022, the nonprofit Mississippi Free Press, founded by Ladd and JFP Associate Publisher Kimberly Griffin in 2020, purchased the journalism assets and archives of the Jackson Free Press. A Google grant through AAN Publishers enabled Newspack's integration of the JFP archives into the Mississippi Free Press website to become part of a more searchable archive of recent Mississippi history and essential journalism.