A fifth-grade student at St. Mary’s Grade School in Centralia submitted the winning entry for the 99th Annual Centralia Halloween Parade in October.
Breez Buettner received the news as his class had gathered in the cafeteria for a pizza party.
‘I was actually surprised. I believe it was partially my mom’s idea. I wanted to do something patriotic, then she thought of it and thought it was a good idea.”
Parade Chair Butch Mathus thinks the theme will work well as the US celebrates its 250th birthday this year.
“We have to get away from trademarked copyrighted, you might say Disney characters, movies, or books. You have to get away from that because of the legalities. So we wanted to go with originality, and what Breez submitted was originality. The theme goes with the 250th anniversary of our nation. Perfect, beautiful, so tip of the hat.”
As the winner, Buettner will ride in the Halloween Parade, be part of the pre-parade reception, and draw his own pumpkin to be displayed with others in downtown Centralia each year before the parade.
Buettner is in Amanda Parker’s 5th-grade class. One of her students also won last year. Parker is now two for two as she is only in her second year as a teacher’s at St. Mary’s. Parker encouraged her students to end, but all the ideas were theirs.
