The cold day was dreary but the rain clouds left and the parade was rainless! The parade staging area had over 30 Krewes and businesses celebrating the annual outside spring social. With a record attendance of over 110,000 spectators and 10,000 pirate dressed parade entrant partiers filling the America’s Top Main Street in the USA! Yes, famed talk show hosts Jerry Springer did a return visit on the WMOR TV float and said, “it is one of the best treasured parades!”

    Beads were not in any shortage for the robust revelers.  There had to be tons of beads on the 130 participating parade floats. Sant’ Yago Knight Parade officials had to be more than pleased with the record number of people. The GaYBOR District Coalition also was very proud to be a float participant in the Ybor City event with 230 diverse business members sharing the Ybor experience.

    The pirate filled GaYBOR float celebrated its 7th year in the parade and the Krewe of Cavaliers float, another GLBT group is celebrating their 30th anniversary this year.  The many Ybor krewes also included the Krewe of Alegria, Ybor City Krewe, Knights of Sant’ Yago and The infamous Roughriders to name a few. They sponsor next month, St. Patty’s Day Parade, Sat,  March 15th in GaYBOR/Ybor City.

    The money raised by the Knights of Sant Yago goes to educational college scholarships and to many non profits.