While this year’s Nipawin Parade marked the nation’s 150 birthday, participant Maureena Schreiner celebrated her own milestone – being in the parade for 45 years.
The White Fox resident and her horse Zipper dressed up in a shiny blue costume with silver frills and marched in the July 16 parade.
“I’ll be thinking of all of the years I’ve been there,” Schreiner said the day before, just after a parade in White Fox. “Some were rainy, some were hot and sunny, some you had a noisy tractor right behind you. As small as these fairs are, I still get all this anticipation the day before.”
She first became involved as part of the White Fox 4-H Club. She then got into horse costume classes – with costumes made by her mother – and go to the Nipawin, Tisdale, Melfort and White Fox parades.
“As a kid, my dream was to go to the Calgary Stampede parade,” Schreiner said. “That was something that you don’t just go; you have to be invited.”
She would get to do just that.
“In 1989, I was in the Nipawin parade, in my fancy outfit and I got back to the Nipawin fairgrounds and this man came up to me and he said, ‘I love your costume. How would you like to ride in the Calgary Stampede?’”
Schreiner thought she was the victim of a bad joke.
“I said, ‘yeah right, who are you?’ And he pulls out a card and he says, ‘I’m a scout for the Calgary Stampede,’” she said. “I said, ‘you’re real?’ and he said, ‘yeah, I am.’”
So she had to send the Stampede of pictures and a biography. From there, they had to decide if they’d send her an entry form – which they did. The Stampede narrowed the entries down to 35 and then chose eight. Schreiner was one of them.
Going to that parade was a big deal. Her parents, uncle from England, in-laws and cousins all came to the event to watch.
At 7 a.m. before the parade, the horses were judged. Schreiner was riding Boo – whose name she would get tattooed.
“I didn’t care about the judging. I was just so glad that I was qualified to go. I didn’t think about anything else,” she said. “I won first prize.”
So she got to lead the horses. The Stampede parade was a whole lot bigger than the hometown parades, with people everywhere and grandstands set up for people to watch. Schreiner said her horse handled the pressure well.
“Boo was just amazing. He was prancing with the music and it was like he knew this was his big thing.”
With all of the people, Schreiner said she wasn’t sure if she would see her parents, but she managed to pick out her dad’s blue jacket amongst the crowd.
“He was a quiet man, never showed a lot of emotion and I saw him wiping tears,” she said. “Well, I’ll tell you, that was probably the thrill of my whole life, that moment, seeing my dad show such emotion.”
Schreiner was invited to participate in 10 Stampedes, but only went to three of them: 1990, 1991 and 1995.
“How many people get to live their dream? It’s something that kids should keep in mind, that maybe it’s not that big of a deal, that you can make your dreams come true.”
As for the parades back home, Schreiner said being a part of them is something she’s passionate about, especially since people she doesn’t even know come up to her on the street and ask her if she’ll be participating in the next one.
“I’ve promised everybody around that if I’m around, I have a horse that will take me in the parade and an outfit that I can wear that will fit, I will be in the Nipawin parade.”
