Our 1953 Commemorative Edition Corvette Story

    Chaz & Gael Cone, Atlanta, GA

Drivin' in the Peach Bowl Parade

Friday, December 31, 2004

Good friend Ron Floyd organizes a fleet of Corvettes each year to carry dignitaries in the Peach Bowl Parade.   This year, Florida meets Miami (FL) tonight at 7:30p on ESPN.

The parade is sponsored by Chick-fil-A.   It runs through downtown Atlanta with bands, clowns, motorcycles, floats -- and, this year, a bunch of Corvette convertibles mostly from our club, Classic Glass.

If you've done parades you know that they are (how shall I put this.....) not the most crisply organized affairs imaginable.   Everything is changing all the time.   This one was an exception; very well organized this time.

We met in a parking lot at Cumberland Mall where friend Winston took those and the rest of the photos on this page:

Winston left a few minutes before us and was able to capture these shots as we approached the Northside Drive bridge on I-75 on our way to the downtown staging area:

The next couple of hours we were occupied by cleaning the cars, affixing the static-cling signs (at least this year they didn't give us magnetic signs as they'd done for all prior years!), adding flags and just generally waiting around:

Of course when there's a group of Corvettes there's usually a bunch of clueless clowns handing around:


I've told Winston for years that he ought to specialize in
taking pictures of clowns. His work on these is just outstanding!

Soon, our various riders made there way to the staging area. Here's Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin who was this year's Grand Marshall:

Here's Chik-fil-A founder Truett Cathy in his classic '57 Belair convertible:

This year the Corvettes were not bunched together as in previous parades.  Winston was able to catch most of them:


Former Falcon Coach Leeman Bennett, Chairman of this year's Chik-fil-A Peach Bowl


Paul Dee, Director of Athletics, University of Miami (and a Corvette fanatic!)


Donna Shalala, President, University of Miami


Tanisha Brito, Miss Georgia USA


Gary Stokan, Chik-fil-A Peach Bowl President


George Crumbley, Peach Bowl Founder


Albert "Smitty" Smith, Sports Ambassador


"Homer", Atlanta Braves Team Mascot


Delta Air Lines balloons

This year we ended up with more Corvettes than dignitaries (who showed up).  But the Corvettes paraded none-the-less :)

BUT, I think we had general agreement that my rider, Katie Conkle, Miss Georgia Teen USA was the loveliest -- and she's only 17!

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