Clow Valve Participates in Main Street Oskaloosa’s Annual Lighted Christmas Parade

December 15, 2014

On Thursday night, December 4, the streets of Oskaloosa were aglow and the excitement was high because it was time for the 27th Annual Main Street Oskaloosa Lighted Christmas Parade “All that Glitter and Glows”.  Clow Valve has been a proud participant in this parade for 22 years.  We are happy to report that this year’s entry won the “Children’s Choice Award.”

Clow’s train float has become an icon of the Oskaloosa Lighted Christmas parade. It was first constructed in December of 1992. It consisted of 5 cars and featured a “loose caboose.” Since then, cars have been modified and added until a total of 9 cars were linked together spanning 128 feet. This year the Float Committee was organized by Kyle Huelsman. Kyle was joined by a group of volunteers including Lee Jones, Debbie Smith, Holly French, Kyle Silvey, Jim Campbell, Bob Bateson and many others from various departments.  The Committee would like to extend a special thanks to Ramon Huerta, Jim LaPoint, Kevin Jones and John Johnson for their help on this year’s float.

This year’s parade theme “All that Glitter and Glows” made the design ideas wide open. A plan quickly converged on bringing Christmas to Oskaloosa and the color scheme turned to blue and white to give the train a noticeable fresh look. Seven cars were stripped painted and lit for the parade; four generators were hidden among the cars to power the lights and animation and 4,200 lights were used to light the wheels. Thousands of additional lights were used to highlight the other features on the train.  As is tradition, children of Clow Valve team members were invited to ride the float and were joined by contestants of Oskaloosa’s Little Ambassadors.  In fact, Clow is now giving rides to a second generation of team children.