On Friday, three Lake Forest residents will be in Washington to take part in the presidential inaugural parade.
Alexis Dennis and Anna Nicholson will ride on horseback while Daphne Karahalios will walk with a school banner. The three girls are students at Culver Academies in Culver, Ind. and are all participants in the Culver Girls Academy Equestriennes.
“Both my parents are coming down,” said Karahalios, 15. “I’m telling all my friends to turn on the TV to look for me.”
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Karahalios said the horsemanship program is part of what drew her to Culver Academies. Likewise for Nicholson, 16, whose family has a legacy at the school.
“My mother rode at Culver and I really wanted to come here,” Nicholson said. “My sister graduated in 2014 and my brother graduated last year. My sister was in Obama’s second inaugural parade. My mother would have (been) in 1985 but that was the year it snowed too much for them to ride.”
Students from Culver Academies first rode in the presidential inaugural parade in 1913, said Jan Garrison, a school spokesman. Thomas Marshall, former Indiana governor and vice president to Woodrow Wilson, visited the Culver Academies campus in 1911. When elected, he requested that riders from the school be his official escort in the 1913 inaugural parade.
“We did it again in 1917 and didn’t ride again until 1957,” Garrison said. “That was Dwight Eisenhower’s second inaugural. We’ve ridden in every inaugural parade since then except Bill Clinton’s first inaugural.”
Participants in the parade are chosen by seniority, said Dennis, 16, who has been riding horses for six years. She’ll ride in the third row.
“It will be really cool to see the president,” Dennis said. “My mom is so excited about this. She booked a hotel months prior to this.”
In all, Culver Academies is sending 80 student riders and four banner carriers. The students will travel on three buses. Transporting 80 horses is a major effort requiring five 18-wheel trucks plus two more trucks for equipment, including 500 pounds of grain and 300 bales of hay.
The group will be in the second division of the parade.
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