Hot Springs residents brighten grey days with annual parade
Summer Goddard
With giant puppet hands Paul Stelter leads the 2025 Lunar New Year parade down Main Street in Hot Springs.
Summer Goddard
Summer Goddard
Summer Goddard
A tiger dances its way down Main Street during the parade
Summer Goddard
Flag wavers and members of the bucket brigade practice their moves before the parade start.
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HOT SPRINGS — Canon fire heralded the start of the 13th annual Lunar New Year parade held last Saturday in Hot Springs.
Also known as the Chinese New Year, the Lunar New Year officially began on Wednesday, Jan. 29. Saturday’s parade participants dressed in brightly colored animal costumes representing the 12 animals of the Chinese Zodiac, and danced down Main Street while towns people gathered on sidewalks to watch. Several parade participants played music on real or makeshift instruments – including buckets and garbage cans for drums.
This year, according to the Chinese Zodiac, is the year of the snake. Parade organizer Linny Gibson, who refers to herself as more of the “master instigator,” wore a snake head that she created out of cardboard and papier mache while seven or so people wearing reflective scales trailed behind her in a congo step to a snake charm song.
Gibson credits a former town resident by the name of Pearl for starting the event some 13 years ago. Pearl wanted to have a community potluck to commemorate the Chinese New Year which traditionally celebrates the first stirrings of spring. Gibson said she offered to help make animal puppets of the Chinese Zodiac and made a small dragon that first year. Community members then made a bigger dragon for the next year.
“The dragon was a big community project,” Gibson said. Weighing 40 pounds, the head of the dragon has to be carried by someone “young and strong.” This year’s snake head, which sits on an aluminum hiking backpack frame, is much lighter.
Animal puppets or costumes have been added nearly every year since including a tiger, rat, ox, rabbit, monkey, rooster, dog, pig and now a snake. The only animals left to add to the lineup are a sheep and a horse.
“We’re already thinking about next year and adding those animals,” Gibson said. “The animals are getting better,” she added, “and easier to wear.”
A shopkeeper by day, Gibson owns Camas Organic Market, Gibson enjoys making art in her free time. “It’s what makes my spirit sing,” she said.
She also enjoys the pop of color in the grey days of January and sense of community the annual event gives her small town. “You know how grey Montana can be in the winter – it’s nice to have something, colorful to look forward to,” Gibson said. “It brings us all together. We spend several Sundays before the parade getting all the animals out, repairing them and finding people who want to wear them.”
“It’s a nice way to engage the community,” she said, adding that the return of spring is always something to celebrate in northwest Montana.
Following the parade, participants and spectators gathered for a potluck community meal at the senior center.
Town resident Paul Stelter, who wore giant papier mache hands and led the parade on its march down Main Street, enjoys participating in the annual event.
“This is by far the best 2 block parade in the state, if not the country,” he proudly proclaimed afterward.
