Petaluma’s Veterans Day Parade replaced with procession to honor local vets

Petaluma’s Veterans Day Parade has long reigned as one of the best anywhere, a spirited spectacle of sharp uniforms, jeeps, horses, firetrucks, low-flying military aircraft, bands, kids, flags and community gratitude that occupies the heart of Sonoma County’s southernmost city each Nov. 11.

Well, not this Nov. 11. As the coronavirus pandemic continued to spread unabated in the county, longtime parade organizer Steve Kemmerle had no choice but to cancel this year’s parade.

The 2020 parade’s focus was to have been the 100th anniversary of American women winning the right to vote. The grand marshals were to have been women veterans.

The parade was also to have been notable for another reason: It would have been the last one coordinated by Kemmerle, who for 16 years has been the American Legion member chiefly responsible for planning and growing the event.

Had the COVID-19 crisis not happened, Kemmerle surely would have bucked up and organized one last parade before yielding the responsibility to another prominent advocate of veterans in Petaluma, former city history museum president Joe Noriel. But the pandemic forced a major change of plans.

Kemmerle stepped aside and Noriel, resolved to carry on the tradition in some fashion, devised Plan B.

He arranged for local veterans dating back to World War II to don masks and take seats Wednesday morning in perhaps 100 vintage cars and other vehicles outside the Petaluma Veterans Memorial Building.

The procession will set out at 11:11 a.m. and, with a Petaluma police escort, will go north on Petaluma Boulevard, then east on East Washington Street and north on McDowell Avenue. The motorcade then will take Petaluma Boulevard back to the vet’s building.

As a salute to the 100th anniversary of passage of the 19th Amendment, the Veterans Day procession will feature as a VIP Air Force veteran and Petaluma resident Rose Nowak, Sonoma County’s 2020 Veteran of the Year.

At organizer Noriel’s invitation and insistence, Kemmerle also plans to ride along.

Kemmerle, who’d earned a master of business administration degree when he was drafted into the Army in 1969, said Tuesday he feels good about the growth of both the Petaluma Veterans Parade and the support for it within the community.

In 2003 the parade attracted 65 entries, Kemmerle remembers. In recent years, it has drawn more than 230 entries and as many as about 45,000 spectators lined up along the route, which starts and ends downtown at Walnut Park.

“It’s been fun,” Kemmerle said. But at 75, the avid world traveler and Vietnam-era veteran credited with making the Petaluma parade what it is today feels ready to step to the sidelines.

As much as he looked forward to producing one last parade, he said, “it’s sort of a blessing that it didn’t happen.” Earlier this year, his knees and leg joints started to hurt, making it more of a chore to walk.

As he steps away as its coordinator, he’s hoping the tribute will thrive far into the future.

“For veterans, it’s a tradition,” he said. “The military has its traditions, and a parade is a tradition.”

Kemmerle is feeling good about passing the reins to Noriel, a Petaluma native who brought acclaimed veteran-focused exhibits to the Petaluma Historical Library and Museum during his run as the museum association’s president, 2008 to 2013. A nonprofit founded by Noriel, History Connection, brought a Vietnam Memorial Traveling Wall to Petaluma’s Lucchesi Park in 2012.

A 54-year-old credit manager, Noriel is not a military veteran. His respect for veterans is rooted in a childhood spent with a father who served with the Marines in both World War II and Korea.

A motorcyclist, Noriel is part of the American Legion Riders of Petaluma’s American Legion Chapter 28, host of the town’s famed but currently suspended Veterans Day Parade.

He speaks of knowing he has big shoes to fill as he succeeds Kemmerle as parade organizer. His plan for the 2021 parade?

“My goal is not to let him (Kemmerle) and the community down,” Noriel said, “and to make it as good as it’s ever been.”

You can reach Staff Writer Chris Smith at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.