LCHS 2019 Junior-Senior Prom “A Red Carpet Affair” kicks off with Grand March

 

[May 06, 2019] 

LINCOLN 

On Saturday evening the Lincoln Community High School and WLCN radio hosted the 30th annual Grand March. The event is held prior to the Junior-Senior Prom.

The evening was cool, but sunny and the event was held on the lawn of the Logan County Courthouse. This year there were a couple of notable differences in the way in which the Grand March was conducted.

In years past there was been a Red Carpet event prior to the Grand March. This year there was no red carpet event, but there was still a red carpet. With the theme for this year’s prom being “A Red Carpet Affair,” the carpet was laid out on the walkway leading from the north side of the courthouse out toward Broadway Street and nicely decorated with ferns and a large number of flowering plants.

This year, because of the issues that are ongoing inside the courthouse following Thursday’s partial collapse of the third floor ceilings due to heavy rainfall, Grand March attendees were not permitted inside the courthouse. Instead a long line of young men and women dressed in formal attire roped around the building starting on the Broadway street side and stretching all the way around to the Pulaski Street side.

With a chill in the air, several of the young men showed their chivalry by removing their suit jackets and allowing their dates to wear them to protect their bare arms and shoulders.

Another new aspect of this year’s Grand March was that the Prom Royal Court was introduced first in pairs. The kind and queen of the prom would be named and crowned later in the evening at the prom. For some of these attendees, the introductions were made, then they rushed back into the line to go through once again with their actual dates for the evening.

Crowds began arriving early in the evening and many enjoyed the live music of the Greg Glick Band as they found their best seat for viewing and waited patiently for the proceedings to begin.

The emcees for the Grand March this year were once again Joe Ryan and “Fix 96 prize girl” Lisa Lindstrom. Jeff Maxwell of WLCN started the evening welcoming all the guests and introducing Ryan and Lindstrom. The emcees then recognized all the sponsors of the grand march event before beginning the night with the introduction of the royal court.

Then for the next 30 minutes or more prom attendees came out from the sidelines to take center stage and then proceed down the red carpet.

Prom continued later in the evening at the Lincoln Knights of Columbus.

The annual Grand March, hosted by WLCN is also filmed by the radio station and will be available for viewing via its website, as well as on the Lincoln College Comcast Cable Channel 5 in about a week.

[Nila Smith]