Published: July 11, 2009 08:05 pm      

Festivities draw hundreds of people to Kimball

KIMBALL — The town of Kimball displayed its incredible resilience in a big way Saturday evening as a crowd numbering in the hundreds — perhaps more than 1,000 — filled the town with joy as the Kimball Junior High School Alumni Band marched through the heart of the town and into the annals of Kimball history.

“It’s been many, many years since we’ve had a crowd this big in Kimball,” Mike Gianato said as he smiled and watched the parade. “The only other crowd was when the war was over ... Maybe,” he said. Mike and his brothers were in service at the time and couldn’t say for sure.

“There’s a spirit here that’s hard to describe,” Kimball playwright Jean Battlo said. “I have many friends who say: ‘Why do you stay here?’ If they were here today to witness this spirit, they would understand why.”

Fred and Lynn Hardee drove all the way from Vivian, a town about a mile away from Kimball, to enjoy the parade which was one of the main attractions of the Fourth Annual Kimball Kids Reunion.

“There were even more people here in town earlier in the day,” Fred Hardee said. “Some of the older people probably went on home, but this is still a great crowd.”

“When Mr. (Talmage) Smart put out the word that he was organizing a Kimball Junior High School Reunion Band this year, everyone wanted to be part of it,” Lynn Hardee said. “Everyone just loved Mr. Smart when he was our band director here.”

Smart, who now lives in Florida, walked beside the 60-or-so members of the reunion band, but stopped frequently to exchange handshakes and hugs with many of his friends lining the street. He borrowed percussion gear from the Mount View High School Golden Knights Marching Band and assembled a drum line that maintained a steady beat. The Kimball Terror Marching Band marched with pride, dignity and joy.

“You better put my picture on the front page of the paper,” Floyd Anderson, McDowell County public defender said as he pointed in the direction of a news photographer. He smiled and didn’t miss a step.

The town of Kimball suffered tremendously from back-to-back floods on July 8, 2001 and May 2, 2002, but many residents as well as several downtown business owners refused to give-up. After the flood waters receded, people who grew up in Kimball and the surrounding communities came back to their former home towns to assess the damage for themselves, and the Kimball Kids reunions have provided an opportunity for people to come back home and see the people they grew up with.

“It’s a lot more fun here when you have this many people flowing through town than when we had all that water,” one man shouted across the street.

Markella Gianato, one of the reunion founders was almost speechless as she looked around at how the event has grown in four short years. “How would you even estimate the size of this crowd,” she said as she stood in front of the Ya’Sou Dli that she and her husband own.

“Every year, this has gotten bigger and bigger,” James J. Gianato said. In addition to being Markella’s husband, James J. Gianato is director of the West Virginia Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management and he is also chief of the Kimball Volunteer Fire Department.

“Be sure to mention that Adam Gianato, my grandson organized this parade,” Mary Gianato, James J. Ginato’s mother said.

“Adam put a lot of time into planning this parade and he had a lot of help,” James J. Gianato said. “I think you could estimate the crowd at more than 1,000. I’ve seem pictures of parades from back in the 1940s, and this one seems about as big as those ones did,” he said.

“This is just a great day,” State Delegate Clif Moore, D-McDowell said as he walked through the crowd.

Area fire departments as well as several antique automobile owners participated in the parade as well as the alumni band.

– Contact Bill Archer at barcher@bdtonline.com