June 25, 2025
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Friendship Festival parade route gets tweaked

Staging area moves to Olivet due to BBCHS construction

By Jeff Bonty
Carnival rides surround the Bourbonnais Municipal Center Pond during the first day of the 49th Bourbonnais Friendship Festival in 2024.

Carnival rides surround the Bourbonnais Municipal Center Pond during the first day of the 49th Bourbonnais Friendship Festival in 2024. (Daily Journal/Tiffany Blanchette)

BOURBONNAIS – Bourbonnais Interim Police Chief Jason Sztuba explained a change in the route for this year’s Friendship Festival Grand Parade.

The announcement came during Monday’s Bourbonnais Board of Trustees meeting.

The family-friendly festival runs from June 25 to 29.

The parade, celebrating the festival’s 50th anniversary, kicks off at 1 p.m. June 29.

Entries have been staged at Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School for several years, but summer construction there has brought about the change, Sztuba said.

“The Friendship Festival Committee has decided to relocate the start to the Ward Field parking lot on University Avenue,” Sztuba said.

“With that happening that way, we’re just going to route the parade straight down University to South Main. It cuts 250 yards off of the total parade route, taking it from out of the neighborhood on Munroe [Street] and adding it back onto University.

Members of the Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School marching band perform during the Bourbonnais Friendship Festival's Grand Parade on Sunday in 2022.

Members of the Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School marching band perform during the Bourbonnais Friendship Festival's Grand Parade on Sunday in 2022. (Daily Journal/Tiffany Blanchette)

“It should ease up some traffic in the village and make it easier for us to maintain the traffic and the safety of the parade.”

Mayor Jeff Keast also said it allows for less road closures.

The new staging area will be the parking lot by Ward Field on the campus of Olivet Nazarene University.

Parade entries will head west on University Avenue, turning north onto South Main Street then turning back west onto Main Street NW (Illinois Route 102).