Sumner County ARES was tasked with assisting the Hendersonville Police Dept. with the Hendersonville Christmas Parade on Sunday December 7th, 2025. Our mission was simple yet effective and beneficial. Sumner County ARES members were to provide visual support for the event and report back anything they may observe that required attention. This could be from an errant vehicle entering the roadway during the parade, someone acting in a obviously suspicious manner or anything else deemed necessary to report. The phrase “If you see something, say something” comes to mind as we had a direct line to the HPD Command Post via our liaison, Paul, KF4VOY. SCARES members started to arrive around 11:30 am with their radios programmed for the channels being utilized that day and their class 2 safety vests. The safety vests serve multiple purposes. The first purpose is to easily identify SCARES members from a civilian’s perspective. This provides comfort to the crowds at large knowing more professionals are keeping an eye on things and as a visual deterrent for anyone who may be thinking about doing something nefarious. Another benefit is so other ARES members, but more importantly the Police, can easily identify the ARES members. If we are not easily visible by the Police we may be mistaken for some of the suspicious persons we are on the look out for and that may divert PD resources from something else. The last purpose is to make sure our members are highly visible by vehicular traffic as safety is always the number one goal.
It was a cold and cloudy Sunday but that did not stop the SCARES crew. With a large community presence, Sumner County ARES deployed to assist with the annual Christmas Parade. SCARES had 12 volunteers for the event deployed at 6 strategic locations along the parade route. The parade went off without a hitch and no incidents occurred, and that is the way we like it. This does not mean that there was no radio traffic flowing through Net Control. The SCARES members acting professionally and their communications skills improve with each event we participate in.
The parade had about 75 entries and lasted about 90 minutes. A pre deployment briefing was held at 1:30pm. The parade start was moved up to 2pm to accommodate last minute entries and keep parade form running late and conflicting with the scheduled Christmas Tree lighting at Memorial Park.
The Sumner County Amateur Radio Association Communications Trailer was deployed and acted as the Sumner County ARES Command Post. Net Control duties were performed by Richard, WA4YQC, and Vincent, K4OZE, from the comms trailer. Thanks goes out to SCARA for supporting the ARES mission and the Hendersonville Community!
All in all it was a great day and a good time for all the SCARES members who volunteered their time. Thank you to those members as we could no accomplish out mission without their support. Here is a list of the members that attended the event, in no particular order:
- Mike, NZ4K
- Jon, W4JDM
- Richard, WA4YQC
- Ben, KR4DXL
- Steve, KN4IHQ
- Steve, W4STX
- Brian, KJ4OCZ
- Vincent, K4OZE
- Paul, KF4VOY
- Mike, K4VVA
- Steve, KD4SAH
Below are some great photos taken from the parade sidelines!
