Friday, Apr. 29, 2005

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Dog named grand marshal of PTC July 4th parade

The grand marshal of this year’s July 4th parade knows a little bit about what it takes to be a winner.

Fenwyck’s Dark Crystal, a black Labrador retriever, won Best of Breed at the prestigious 2005 Westminster Dog Show, and will be accompanied at the parade by owner Susan Walker of Peachtree City.

Carolyn Stanton, manager of leisure programs for the Peachtree City Recreation Department, noted that the Westminster honor is a big deal.

“In our city, our pets are important to us and we applaud Crystal’s achievement,” Stanton said.

Crystal is also featured on the cover of the department’s summer activities catalog. At the end of the parade, the first 100 people at the Shakerag Knoll Pavilion with a copy of the catalog can get a paw print autograph from Crystal.

The parade will begin this year at 9 a.m. Although no entries from outside Fayette County will be allowed to register, some will be allowed to participate if invited by parade organizers.

“We will reserve the right to invite out-of-county entries if we feel they will enhance the parade’s overall patriotic or aesthetic appeal,” said Randy Gaddo, the city’s director of leisure services. One such example would be last year’s entry from Delta Airlines, which featured a large, crowd-pleasing gas-filled airplane in the parade.

Awards will be given in the categories of most patriotic, most creative, most original, the mayor’s trophy, the grand marshal’s trophy and first through third place for best decorated golf carts.