PASS CHRISTIAN, Miss. (WLOX) - On Sunday, the St. Paul Carnival Association Parade will roll for the 95th time.
“If you can’t find something exciting to do on the Mississippi Gulf Coast then you’re just missing out, and Mardi Gras is one of the best,” Kevin Gallagher said.
Gallagher has been a part of the St. Paul Carnival Association since he was 15. He has built floats, in 2001 he was King Christian 71 and he’s even a regular on the parade broadcasts.
2025 will make his 50th year of involvement in the parade.
“I remember as a float builder we’d always ride the parade route the day before the parade, and it just built an excitement in you that this is going to be a big crowd,” Gallagher said. “Now that the parade route is barricaded from beginning to end, it keeps an hourglass effect of the crowds pushing in, it keeps them at bay and everybody has a grand time.”
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Although the St. Paul Carnival Association officially launched in 1930, Mardi Gras celebrations in Pass Christian started a lot earlier. The city hosted balls in the late 1800s, and horses pulling floats rolled through the streets as early as 1914.
Through the years, families passed the tradition down, like 2024 Queen Christiana Lindsey Fowler. Both of her parents were also royalty.
“It’s all of our holidays wrapped in one. It’s all my husband hears about is Mardi Gras,” Fowler said.
“It’s a mixture of your older community, middle-aged community, the younger group and they work together as a team,” Gallagher said.
Each generation carries on a parade legend of it never raining on the parade.
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“The sun will shine, and have it made, but it never rains on the Pass Parade,” Gallagher said. ”No, that’s not true, but we’re praying for no rain.”
The fun still rolls rain or shine and Gallagher found that out firsthand when he reigned as king.
“The clouds opened up a little bit, it wasn’t a downpour, but it was a hard mist,” Gallagher said. “As we made it to the reviewing stand, they were all soaking wet from a constant little mist. I got riddled a lot because I was the first king that had any kind of moisture fall on their parade, and they thought that was going to be the jinx going forward.”
The festivities do carry a bigger purpose than just the fun. The St. Paul Carnival Association raises money for St. Vincent de Paul Catholic School. Principal Carol Church said the fundraising effort is vital in accomplishing the school’s mission.
“It’s very important to us that we’re able to give Catholic kids a quality Catholic education,” Church said. “Our tuition is much lower, so that means we have to fill in the gaps and the carnival associations help us do that.”
“When we sit down, see our numbers we did and how well we did to raise money for our school and community is so rewarding,” Fowler said. “It’s wonderful and a great feeling to see how our hard work paid off.”
The tradition of good times and charity work is set to roll on for generations to come.
“I just think it’s going to get better and better,” Gallagher said. “The fact that the Pass Parade has the family orientation built into it, I think it’s going to go from here and you can’t expect anything but greater things.”
The St. Paul Carnival Association Parade rolls on Sunday, March 2 at noon.
If you can’t make it, you can still watch the parade live on WLOX Bounce and MeTV. Also, a replay of the parade will come on Sunday at 3:00 p.m. on WLOX ABC.
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